Mid-Atlantic Bight

The Mid-Atlantic Bight is the wide continental shelf of the eastern United States from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras, marked by a persistent equatorward shelf current and a sharp shelfbreak front separating cool, fresh shelf water from warm, salty slope water. A subsurface remnant of winter water, the cold pool, is trapped on the outer shelf through summer beneath the seasonal thermocline. Shelf circulation, Gulf Stream warm-core rings impinging at the shelf edge, and large freshwater input shape its hydrography and fisheries. Cape Hatteras marks where the Gulf Stream separates from the coast.