Grand Banks

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Map showing the Grand Banks

Historic map of the Grand Banks.

The Grand Banks are a group of underwater plateaus southeast of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. These areas are relatively shallow, ranging from 25 to 100 metres in depth. The cold Labrador Current mixes with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream here.

The mixing of these waters and the shape of the ocean bottom here lift nutrients to the surface. These conditions created one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Fish species include Atlantic cod, haddock and capelin. Shellfish include scallop and lobster. The area also supports large colonies of sea birds such as Northern Gannets, shearwaters and sea ducks and various sea mammals such as seals, dolphins and whales.

In addition to the effects on nutrients, the mixing of the cold and warm currents often causes fog in the area.

Several navigators, including Basque fisherman are known to have fished these waters in the 15th century. In the 15th century some texts refer to a land called Bacalao, the land of the codfish, which is possibly Newfoundland. However, it was not until John Cabot reached the New World in 1497 that the existence of these fishing grounds became generally known in Europe. Ships from France, Spain, Portugal and England came to fish these waters. These fish stocks were also important for the early economies of eastern Canada and New England.

On November 18, 1929, a major earthquake (known as the 1929 Grand Banks earthquake) on the southwestern part of the Grand Banks bordering the Laurentian Channel caused an underwater landslide which resulted in extensive damage to transatlantic cables and generated a rare Atlantic tsunami that struck the south coast of Newfoundland and eastern Cape Breton Island claiming 27 lives in the Burin Peninsula.

Technological advances in fishing such as large factory ships and sonar, as well as geopolitical disputes over territorial sea and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) boundaries, have led to overfishing and a serious decline in the fish stocks of the Grand Banks. Canada's EEZ currently occupies the majority of the Grand Banks except for the lucrative "nose" (eastern extremity, near the Flemish Cap) and "tail" (southern extremity) of the fishing bank. However, the Treaty of Paris (1783) gives the U.S. shared rights to fish these waters, despite the EEZ.

Canada is currently performing the hydrographic and geological surveys necessary for claiming the entire continental shelf off eastern Canada, under the auspices of the latest United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Once this aspect of UNCLOS is ratified, Canada will presumably control these remaining parts of Grand Banks which are outside of its EEZ jurisdiction.

Petroleum reserves have also been discovered and a number of oil fields are under development in this region, most notably the Hibernia, Terra Nova, and White Rose projects; the harsh environment on the Grand Banks also led to the Ocean Ranger disaster.

Semi-fictional depictions of fishermen working on the Grand Banks can be found in Sebastian Junger's novel The Perfect Storm (1997) and in Rudyard Kipling's novel Captains Courageous (1897).