- Arthur Kill
The Arthur Kill (from the Middle Dutch word "kille", meaning "riverbed" or "water channel") is a tidal
strait separating Staten Island from mainlandNew Jersey , USA. Throughout history, it has also been known as Staten Island Sound.Description
The channel is approximately 10 miles (16 km) long and connects
Raritan Bay on its south end withNewark Bay on the north. Along theNew Jersey side it is primarily lined with industrial sites, whereas on the Staten Island side, it is primarily lined with salt marshes.A heavily used marine channel, it provides access for ocean-going
container ship s toPort Newark and to industrial facilities along the channel itself.It also provides the primary marine access to the now-closed
Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.The channel is dredged periodically to a depth of 35–37 feet (11 m) and a width of 600 feet (183 m) to maintain its usefulness for commercial ship passage.
Because of the complex nature of the tides in
New York Harbor near the mouth of theHudson River , thehydrology of the Arthur Kill is still an open subject. In particular, the net flow of the channel is not well established.It is spanned by the
Goethals Bridge and theOuterbridge Crossing , as well as by theArthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge , the largest bridge of its type in the United States.It contains two small uninhabited islands,
Prall's Island and theIsle of Meadows , both of which belong to theborough of Staten Island.Geology
The Arthur Kill is an abandoned river channel carved by an ancestral phase of the Hudson River resulting from the blockage of the main channel of the Hudson at
The Narrows by moraine or ice. The size of the Arthur Kill channel is large, suggesting that it was, for a time, the primary drainage from the region. However, it was not a primary drainage for long because the river did not have enough time to carve a broad flood plain."(Source: [http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/nyc/morraines/raritanbay.htm U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey] )"
Tributaries
*
Rahway River
*Passaic River
*Hackensack River ee also
*
List of New Jersey rivers
*Lower New York Bay
*Raritan Bay
*Hudson Canyon References
* [http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:Qa2LIGNgYWcJ:www.nan.usace.army.mil/project/newyork/factsh/pdf/AKOM.pdf+Arthur+Kill&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Dredging Report, Dec. 2003]
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