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An inlet is a typically long and narrow indentation of a
shoreline A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...
such as a small arm,
cove A cove is a small bay or coastal inlet. They usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creek (tidal), creeks, or recesses in a coast ...
, bay,
sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...
, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger
body of water A body of water or waterbody is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another planet. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such as ponds, wetlands, or more rare ...
such as a
lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...
, estuary, gulf or marginal sea.


Overview

In marine geography, the term "inlet" usually refers to either the actual channel between an enclosed bay and the open ocean and is often called an "entrance", or a significant recession in the shore of a sea, lake or large river. A certain kind of inlet created by past glaciation is a fjord, typically but not always in mountainous coastlines and also in montane lakes. Multi-arm complexes of large inlets or fjords may be called
sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...
s, e.g.,  Puget Sound, Howe Sound, Karmsund (''sund'' is Scandinavian for "sound"). Some fjord-type inlets are called canals, e.g.,  Portland Canal, Lynn Canal, Hood Canal, and some are channels, e.g.,  Dean Channel and Douglas Channel. Tidal amplitude, wave intensity, and wave direction are all factors that influence sediment flux in inlets. On low slope sandy coastlines, inlets often separate barrier islands and can form as the result of storm events. Alongshore sediment transport can cause inlets to close if the action of tidal currents flowing through an inlet do not flush accumulated sediment out of the inlet.


See also

* Alaska Panhandle * British Columbia Coast * Calanque * Inside Passage * Ria


Notes


References

*


External links


Coastal Inlets Research Program
{{coastal geography Coastal and oceanic landforms Bodies of water