Golden Gate

Information about Golden Gate

This article is about the strait in California. For other uses see Golden Gate (disambiguation).
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The Golden Gate


The Golden Gate is the strait connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Since 1937 it has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge.

During the last Ice Age, when sea level was several hundred feet lower, the waters of the glacier-fed Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River scoured a deep channel through the bedrock on their way to the ocean.[1] It is well known today for its depth and powerful tidal currents from the Pacific Ocean. Many small whirlpools and eddies can form in its waters.

Before the arrival of Europeans in the eighteenth century, the area around the strait and the bay was inhabited by the Ohlone people.

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The Golden Gate in California, as seen from the Marin Headlands looking southwest towards the open ocean.


During the summer, the heat in the California Central Valley causes the air there to rise. This can create strong winds which pull cool moist air in from over the ocean through the break in the hills caused by the Golden Gate, commonly causing a stream of dense fog to enter the bay. The strait was surprisingly elusive for early European explorers, presumably due to this persistent summer fog. The strait is not recorded in the voyages of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo nor Francis Drake, both of whom may have explored the nearby coast in the sixteenth century in search of the fabled Northwest Passage. The strait is also unrecorded in observation by several Spanish galleons returning from the Philippines that laid up in nearby Drakes Bay. These galleons often passed west of the Farallon Islands (27 miles west of the Golden Gate), fearing the possibility of rocks between the Islands and the mainland.

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The Golden Gate looking west to the Pacific Ocean.
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The Golden Gate, looking south towards San Francisco. San Francisco Bay is on the left, and the Pacific Ocean is on the right


The first recorded observation of the strait was nearly two hundred years later in 1769, by Sgt. José Francisco Ortega, the leader of a scouting party sent north along the peninsula of present-day San Francisco. Ortega reported that he could proceed no further because of the strait. On 5 August 1775 Juan de Ayala and the crew of his ship the San Carlos became the first Europeans known to have passed through the strait, anchoring in a cove behind Angel Island which is now named in Ayala's honor. Until the 1840s the strait was called the "Boca del Puerto de San Francisco" (Mouth of the Port of San Francisco). On 1 July, 1846, before the discovery of gold in California, the entrance acquired a new name. In his memoirs, John C. Frémont wrote, "To this Gate I gave the name of "Chrysopylae", or "Golden Gate"; for the same reasons that the harbor of Byzantium was called Chrysoceras, or Golden Horn."[2]

The strait is located at .

References

1. ^ A similar process created the undersea Hudson Canyon off the coast of New York and New Jersey.
2. ^ Gudde, Erwin G. California Place Names (2004) University of California Press, London, England. ISBN 0-520-24217-3.

External links

Golden Gate can refer to:

Historic town gates

  • The Golden Gate (Porta Aurea), imperial entrance gate of the Walls of Constantinople and the largest among the 55 gates around the city walls which protected Constantinople, present-day Istanbul, Turkey

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A strait is a narrow channel of water that connects two larger bodies of water, and thus lies between two land masses. The terms strait, channel, passage, sound, and firth
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San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean.
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Earth's oceans
(World Ocean)
  • Arctic Ocean
  • Atlantic Ocean
  • Indian Ocean
  • Pacific Ocean
  • Southern Ocean


The Pacific Ocean (from the Latin name Mare Pacificum
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Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening into the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. It connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County as part of US Highway 101 and California State
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ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's climate, resulting in an expansion of the continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers.
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Sacramento

Sacramento River delta


Country | United States
State | California
Major cities | Redding,Sacramento

Length |
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Origin Martha Lake (California)
Mouth Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Basin countries United States (100%)
Length 330 mi (0 km)
Source elevation
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whirlpool is a large, swirling body of water produced by ocean tides. In popular imagination, but only rarely in reality, they can have the dangerous effect of destroying boats.
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In fluid dynamics, an eddy is the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fluid flows past an obstacle. The moving fluid creates a space devoid of downstream-flowing water on the downstream side of the object.
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Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan and as the Muwekma, are the indigenous people of Northern California who have lived in the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas since 500 AD, spanning south into the Salinas Valley.
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Central Valley is a large, flat valley that dominates the central portion of the U.S. state of California, United States. It is home to many of California's most productive agricultural efforts. The valley stretches nearly 400 miles (600 km) from north to south.
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Origins

Little is known about Cabrilho’s early years. His nationality was first addressed by contemporary Spanish chronicler Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, who, in his Historia General de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano
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Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral, (c. 1540 – January 27 1596) was an English privateer, navigator, slave trader, politician and civil engineer of the Elizabethan era. Drake was knighted by the Queen in 1581.
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The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via the waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
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Spanish Empire refer to territories formerly colonized by Spain. It was also one of the largest global empire in history.

In the 15th and 16th centuries Spain was in the vanguard of European global exploration and colonial expansion and the opening of trade routes across the
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A galleon was a large, multi-decked sailing ship used primarily by the nations of Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries. Whether used for war or commerce, they were generally armed with demi-culverin.
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Drake's Bay is a small bay on the coast of northern California in the United States, approximately 30 miles (48 km) northwest of San Francisco at approximately 38 degrees North latitude. The bay is approximately 8 miles (13 km) wide.
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Location Pacific Ocean
Nearest city San Francisco, CA
Coordinates
Area 1,036 acres
Established 1969

Governing body United States Fish and Wildlife Service

The Farallon Islands
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8th century - 9th century - 10th century
850s  860s  870s  - 880s -  890s  900s  910s
885 886 887 - 888 - 889 890 891

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Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
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José Francisco Ortega (1734–February 1798) was soldier and early settler of California.

Ortega was born 1734 at Zelaya, Guanajuanto, Mexico, where he worked as a warehouse clerk.
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City and County of San Francisco
"The Painted Ladies"

Flag
Seal
Nickname: The City, The City by the Bay, San Fran, Frisco,[1] Baghdad by the Bay[2]
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August 5 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 642 - Battle of Maserfeld - Penda of Mercia defeats and kills Oswald of Bernicia.

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8th century - 9th century - 10th century
850s  860s  870s  - 880s -  890s  900s  910s
885 886 887 - 888 - 889 890 891

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Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
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Juan Manuel de Ayala (28 December 1745 – 30 December 1797) was a Spanish naval officer who played a significant role in the European exploration of California, since he and the crew of his ship the San Carlos
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Angel Island is an island in San Francisco Bay that offers spectacular views of the San Francisco skyline, the Marin County Headlands and Mount Tamalpais. It is a California state park, Angel Island State Park.
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July 1 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining. The end of this day marks the halfway point of a leap year.
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18th century - 19th century - 20th century
1810s  1820s  1830s  - 1840s -  1850s  1860s  1870s
1843 1844 1845 - 1846 - 1847 1848 1849

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GOLD refers to one of the following:
  • GOLD (IEEE) is an IEEE program designed to garner more student members at the university level (Graduates of the Last Decade).
  • GOLD (parser) is an open source BNF parser.

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