Smith Bay is an estuary in the Beaufort Sea that supports a wide range of fish, birds, and marine mammals. It is located northeast of Point Barrow, Alaska. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management recognizes the southeastern portion of Barrow Canyon, which covers some, but not all, of Smith Bay, as an Environmentally Important Area. [1]
Approximately 150 miles west of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, Smith Bay stretches from Dease Inlet, Alaska to Cape Halkett, Alaska. Bordered by barrier islands that separate the shallow, brackish waters from the Beaufort Sea, several slow-moving rivers flow into this region. Along with its adjacent waters, Smith Bay is a shallow-water estuary.
Smith Bay is a significant hotspot for pinnipeds. [2] The nearshore areas are important habitat for ringed seals that come to the landfast ice during the winter and spring to give birth. [3]
Polar bears and bowhead whales rely on Smith Bay for important foraging habitat. [4] [5] Polar bears have been observed using Smith Bay as a major maternal denning area to raise their young. [6]
Many species of birds, including yellow-billed loons, king eiders, Arctic terns, black-legged kittiwakes, glaucous and Sabine's gulls, king eiders, long-tailed ducks, and red phalaropes, are found in Smith Bay. [7]
There is a known oil seep at Cape Simpson on the western side of Smith Bay. In 2015 and 2016, Caelus Energy Alaska drilled two exploration wells in the southern part of the bay. [8] In October 2016, the company announced what it called a major oil discovery in the bay and said it would drill a third well in January 2018 and proceed with permitting a pipeline afterwards. [9] A pipeline under the Chukchi Sea or a pipeline on land close to "Qupaluk" (“small bird” in the Inupiaq language) would be required, threatening the habitat of at least 30,000 migratory birds. [10]
The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and the Americas. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves. The Bering Sea is named after Vitus Bering, a Danish navigator in Russian service, who, in 1728, was the first European to systematically explore it, sailing from the Pacific Ocean northward to the Arctic Ocean.
Steller's eider is a migrating Arctic diving duck that breeds along the coastlines of eastern Russia and Alaska. It is the rarest, smallest, and fastest flying of the eider species.
The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Francis Beaufort, a hydrographer. The Mackenzie River, the longest in Canada, empties into the Canadian part of the Beaufort Sea west of Tuktoyaktuk, which is one of the few permanent settlements on the sea's shores.
The Alaska North Slope is the region of the U.S. state of Alaska located on the northern slope of the Brooks Range along the coast of two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Chukchi Sea being on the western side of Point Barrow, and the Beaufort Sea on the eastern. With the exception of the highway connecting Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay, the region is disconnected from the rest of the Alaskan road system and relies mostly on waterways and small airports for transportation due to the Brooks Range secluding the region from the rest of the state.
The Chukchi Sea, sometimes referred to as the Chuuk Sea, Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, beyond which lies the Beaufort Sea. The Bering Strait forms its southernmost limit and connects it to the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The principal port on the Chukchi Sea is Uelen in Russia. The International Date Line crosses the Chukchi Sea from northwest to southeast. It is displaced eastwards to avoid Wrangel Island as well as the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug on the Russian mainland.
The spectacled eider is a large sea duck that breeds on the coasts of Alaska and northeastern Siberia.
Foxe Basin is a shallow oceanic basin north of Hudson Bay, in Nunavut, Canada, located between Baffin Island and the Melville Peninsula. For most of the year, it is blocked by sea ice and drift ice made up of multiple ice floes.
Exploration for petroleum in the Arctic is expensive and challenging both technically and logistically. In the offshore, sea ice can be a major factor. There have been many discoveries of oil and gas in the several Arctic basins that have seen extensive exploration over past decades but distance from existing infrastructure has often deterred development. Development and production operations in the Arctic offshore as a result of exploration have been limited, with the exception of the Barents and Norwegian seas. In Alaska, exploration subsequent to the discovery of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield has focussed on the onshore and shallow coastal waters.
The wildlife of Alaska is both diverse and abundant. The Alaskan Peninsula provides an important habitat for fish, mammals, reptiles, and birds. At the top of the food chain are the bears. Alaska contains about 70% of the total North American brown bear population and the majority of the grizzly bears, as well as black bears and Kodiak bears. In winter, polar bears can be found in the Kuskokwim Delta, St. Matthew Island, and at the southernmost portion of St. Lawrence Island. Other major mammals include moose and caribou, bison, wolves and wolverines, foxes, otters and beavers. Fish species are extensive, including: salmon, graylings, char, rainbow and lake trout, northern pike, halibut, pollock, and burbot. The bird population consists of hundreds of species, including: bald eagles, owls, falcons, ravens, ducks, geese, swans, and the passerines. Sea lions, seals, sea otters, and migratory whales are often found close to shore and in offshore waters. The Alaskan waters are home to two species of turtles, the leatherback sea turtle and the green sea turtle. Alaska has two species of frogs, the Columbia spotted frog and wood frog, plus two introduced species, the Pacific tree frog and the red-legged frog. The only species of toad in Alaska is the western toad. There are over 3,000 recorded species of marine macroinvertebrates inhabiting the marine waters, the most common being the various species of shrimp, crab, lobster, and sponge.
The Chukchi Shelf or Chukchi Sea Shelf is the westernmost part of the continental shelf of the United States and the easternmost part of the continental shelf of Russia. In the west it merges with the Russian Siberian Shelf. Within this shelf, the 50-mile Chukchi Corridor acts as a passageway for one of the largest marine mammal migrations in the world.
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately 14,060,000 km2 (5,430,000 sq mi) and is known as one of the coldest of oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea. It has also been described as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean.
The bowhead whale is a species of baleen whale belonging to the family Balaenidae and is the only living representative of the genus Balaena. It is the only baleen whale endemic to the Arctic and subarctic waters, and is named after its characteristic massive triangular skull, which it uses to break through Arctic ice. Other common names of the species included the Greenland right whale, Arctic whale, steeple-top, and polar whale.
The Arctic coastal tundra is an ecoregion of the far north of North America, an important breeding ground for a great deal of wildlife.
Hanna Shoal is a shallow, natural shoal located off the coast of northwest Alaska in the Chukchi Sea. The region around Hanna Shoal is one of the Chukchi Sea’s most biologically productive areas.
Harrison Bay is an estuary located north of Alaska that opens into the Beaufort Sea. It is adjacent to the Colville Delta. The powerful outflow of the Colville River creates a shallow region that is rich with nutrients, making it ecologically significant for wildlife.
Colville Delta is a river delta in northern Alaska that flows into Harrison Bay. The delta is so flat that it has been said that it is indiscernible where the river ends and the ocean begins. The powerful outflow of the Colville River creates a shallow region that is rich with nutrients, making it ecologically significant for wildlife.
Barrow Canyon is a submarine canyon that straddles the boundary between the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Compared to other nearby areas and the Canada Basin, the highly productive Barrow Canyon supports a diversity of marine animals and invertebrates.
Herald Shoal is a region of high benthic productivity on the Chukchi Sea shelf. It serves as rich foraging habitat for many species of marine mammals and birds.
Early on in his campaign for election, former president Barack Obama made it clear that climate change was a priority for his administration. Soon after becoming President Elect in November 2008, he reiterated this positing stating: “Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response.” Contradictory to his 2008 campaign promises on the Offshore drilling debate, Obama felt obliged to open coastal areas off the Alaskan coast to exploratory assessments for oil and gas as a means to continue to stimulate economic growth. This decision in March 2010 was abruptly reversed in May 2010 after the catastrophic failure of the Deep Water Horizon drilling operation, which led to the six-month moratorium on deep water drilling in the United States territorial waters.
Tagiuk Provider, formerly Arctic Endeavor, is a 205 ft (62 m) 1500-ton ice-class flat-topped deck cargo barge adapted to being a clam-shell crane scoop mining platform for placer gold mining in the Bering Sea off Nome, Alaska, United States. The barge, a gold dredge, is owned by Tagiuk Gold, which previously ran scuba-diver-operated suction dredges for seafloor gold mining in the area. Tagiuk Gold is run by miner Andrew Lee, whose business running the barge is partially crowdfunded. Tagiuk Provider was profiled in an episode of Bering Sea Gold, at which time, it was the largest scoop dredge operating off Nome.