Central-and-southern-Yorke-Peninsula-aerial-view-1229

Gulf St Vincent, sometimes referred to as St Vincent Gulf, St Vincent's Gulf or Gulf of St Vincent, is the eastern of two large inlets of water on the southern coast of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, in the state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

, the other being the larger

Spencer Gulf The Spencer Gulf is the westernmost and larger of two large inlets (the other being Gulf St Vincent) on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, facing the Great Australian Bight. It spans from the Cape Catastrophe an ...

, from which it is separated by

Yorke Peninsula The Yorke Peninsula, known as Guuranda by the original inhabitants, the Narungga people, is a peninsula located northwest and west of Adelaide in South Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. The peninsula ...

. On its eastern side the gulf is bordered by the

Adelaide Plains The Adelaide Plains (Kaurna name Tarndanya) is a plain in South Australia lying between the coast ( Gulf St Vincent) on the west and the Mount Lofty Ranges on the east. The southernmost tip of the plain is in the southern seaside suburbs of A ...

and the

Fleurieu Peninsula The Fleurieu Peninsula ( ; locally mainly ) is a peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia located south of the state capital of Adelaide city centre, Adelaide. History Before British colonisation of South Australia, the western s ...

Description

The St Vincent basin is formed from

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

sediments deposited over, and surrounded by,

Proterozoic The Proterozoic ( ) is the third of the four geologic eons of Earth's history, spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8 Mya, and is the longest eon of Earth's geologic time scale. It is preceded by the Archean and followed by the Phanerozo ...

and

Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

rock. Around 55 million years ago

Gondwanaland Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealandia, Arabia, and the ...

broke up and Australia separated from Antarctica, causing a number of basins to form along the southern Australian coastline. Around 40 million years ago a number of blocks formed with the

Mount Lofty Ranges The Mount Lofty Ranges are a range of mountains in the Australian state of South Australia which for a small part of its length borders the east of Adelaide. The part of the range in the vicinity of Adelaide is called the Adelaide Hills and d ...

rising to the east of the St Vincent basin. At the end of the

Last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Ice sheets covered m ...

around 10,000-15,000 years ago, the sea levels rose and covered the St. Vincent basin.

Location

To the south it is defined by a line from

Troubridge Point Troubridge Point is a headland in the Australian state of South Australia located on the south coast of Yorke Peninsula about south west of Edithburgh. It is the western end of the opening to Gulf St Vincent. Description Troubridge Point is ...

on Yorke Peninsula to

Cape Jervis Cape Jervis is a town in the Australian state of South Australia located near the western tip of Fleurieu Peninsula on the southern end of the Main South Road approximately south of the state capital of Adelaide. It is named after the headla ...

on Fleurieu Peninsula. Its entrances from the southwest are from

Investigator Strait Investigator Strait is a body of water in South Australia lying between the Yorke Peninsula, on the Australian mainland, and Kangaroo Island. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his ship, HMS ''Investigator'', on his voyage of 1801–1802. ...

, and to the southeast from

Backstairs Passage The Backstairs Passage is a strait in South Australia lying between Fleurieu Peninsula on the Australian mainland and Dudley Peninsula on the eastern end of Kangaroo Island. The western edge of the passage is a line from Cape Jervis (headland), ...

, which separate

Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island (, ) is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island, Northern Territory, Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest of Adelaide. Its closest point to the mainland is Snapper Poi ...

from the mainland.

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

lies midway along the gulf's east shore. Other towns located on the gulf include, from west to east,

Edithburgh Edithburgh is a small town on the south-east corner of Yorke Peninsula situated on the coastline of Salt Creek Bay, in the state of South Australia. Edithburgh is about west of Adelaide across Gulf St Vincent, but away by road. Edithburgh ...

, Stansbury, Port Vincent and

Ardrossan Ardrossan (; ) is a town on the North Ayrshire coast in southwestern Scotland. The town has a population of 10,670 and forms part of a conurbation with Saltcoats and Stevenston known as the 'Three Towns#Scotland, Three Towns'. Ardrossan is loca ...

on the west coast, and Port Wakefield and Normanville on the east coast.

History

The Aboriginal name given to it by the original inhabitants of the area, the

Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kau ...

people was Wongajerla, also spelt Wongga Yerlo or Wonggayerlo, meaning "western sea". It was named Gulph of St. Vincent by

Matthew Flinders Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then ...

on 30 March 1802, in honour of Admiral John Jervis (1st Earl of St Vincent) who won a naval victory off Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. It was shortly afterwards (after his meeting with Flinders at

Encounter Bay Encounter Bay is a bay in the Australian state of South Australia located on the state's south central coast about south of the state capital of Adelaide. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his encounter on 8 April 1802 with Nicolas Bau ...

on 8 April 1802) mapped by

Nicolas Baudin Nicolas Thomas Baudin (; 17 February 175416 September 1803) was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer, most notable for his explorations in Australia and the southern Pacific. He carried a few corms of Gros Michel banana ...

, who named it Golfe de la Mauvaise or Golfe de la Misanthrophie. In the following year

Louis de Freycinet Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet (7 August 1779 – 18 August 1841) was a French Navy officer. He circumnavigated the Earth, and in 1811 published the first map to show a full outline of the coastline of Australia. Biography He was born at M ...

renamed it Golphe Josephine to honour

Josephine Bonaparte Josephine may refer to: People *Josephine (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Josephine (singer), a Greek pop singer Places * Josephine, Texas, United States * Josephine County, Oregon, a county located in the ...

. Due to Flinders' lengthy imprisonment on

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

during his return to England, the publication of Baudin's map preceded that of Flinders by three years. The

Adelaide Desalination Plant The Adelaide Desalination Plant (ADP), formerly known as the Port Stanvac Desalination Plant, is a sea water reverse osmosis desalination plant located in Lonsdale, South Australia which has the capacity to provide the city of Adelaide with up ...

which is located on Gulf St Vincent's eastern shore in Lonsdale, supplies the Adelaide metropolitan area with desalinated water from the gulf. It officially opened in 2013.

Environment

The Gulf teems with

crustacea Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

and polychaeta, as well as various species of

sea squirt Ascidiacea, commonly known as the ascidians or sea squirts, is a paraphyletic class in the subphylum Tunicata of sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders. Ascidians are characterized by a tough outer test or "tunic" made of the polysaccharid ...

s and

sea urchin Sea urchins or urchins () are echinoderms in the class (biology), class Echinoidea. About 950 species live on the seabed, inhabiting all oceans and depth zones from the intertidal zone to deep seas of . They typically have a globular body cove ...

s. The

benthos Benthos (), also known as benthon, is the community of organisms that live on, in, or near the bottom of a sea, river, lake, or stream, also known as the benthic zone.zosteraceae Zosteraceae (one of the four seagrasses families, Kubitzki ed. 1998) is a family of marine perennial flowering plants found in temperate and subtropical coastal waters, with the highest diversity located around Korea and Japan. Most seagrasses ...

around the mouth of the

Port River The Port River (officially known as the Port Adelaide River) is part of a tidal estuary located north of the Adelaide city centre in the Australian state of South Australia. It has been used as a shipping channel since the beginning of European ...

. The

cardinalfish Cardinalfishes are a family, Apogonidae, of ray-finned fishes found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans; they are chiefly marine, but some species are found in brackish water and a few (notably '' Glossamia'') are found in fresh water. A ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

'' Vincentia'' takes its name from Gulf St Vincent where the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wikt:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to ancho ...

of its

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

was collected.

Gallery

References

External links

South Australian State Gazetteer PlaceNames Online Search

Friends of Gulf St Vincent
Accessed 14 February 2014. {{List of Australian seas Bodies of water of South Australia St Vincent Coastline of South Australia Aulacogens IMCRA meso-scale bioregions