Bass Strait

The Bass Strait (in English: Bass Strait IPA /bæs/) is a marine strait that separates the island of Tasmania from the southern coast of Australia, state of Victoria. The first European to discover it was in 1798 the British Matthew Flinders, ^{[citation needed]} who named it after the ship's doctor, George Bass.

On the islands of Bass Strait live the only surviving Aboriginal people of Tasmania, those who were not exterminated during the Black War.

For the purposes of maritime navigation, the International Hydrographic Organization considers it a sea.

Geography

Bass Strait is approximately 240 km wide at its narrowest point and close to 50 meters deep. It was practically dry during the last ice age. There are several islands in the strait, including King Island and Flinders Island, which have important settlements.

Islands

There are more than 50 islands in Bass Strait, including:

• In the Western section: King Island, Three Hummock Island, Hunter Island and Robbins Island.
• In the southeast section: the Furneaux Group (Flinders Island, Cape Barren Island and Clark Island) and more than 50 smaller islands.
• In the northeast section: Kent Group (Isle Deal and 3 smaller islands), Hogan Island and Curtis Island.

Navigation

Like the rest of the waters surrounding Tasmania, and due to its shallow depth, the strait is very difficult to navigate. Many ships were wrecked there during the 19th century. In 1848 a lighthouse was built on Deal Island to guide ships in the eastern part of the strait, but there was no signage at the western entrance to the strait until 1859, when work on a lighthouse was completed (Wilsons Promontory Lighthouse). To the latter was added in 1861 another lighthouse at Cape Wickham, at the northern end of King Island.

The currents between the Antarctic Ocean and the Tasman Sea make the strait a place of big waves. To illustrate the intensity of the tides in the area, it must be taken into consideration that the Bass Strait is twice as wide as the English Channel, which is also twice the intensity of its waves. Shipwrecks off the coasts of Tasmania and Victoria number in the hundreds, although modern navigation techniques and metal-hulled ships have significantly reduced the risk of accidents. Many ships, some of them large, have disappeared without a trace or leaving little evidence of their passage. Despite myths of piracy and supernatural phenomena similar to those of the Bermuda Triangle, disappearances can invariably be attributed to combinations of wind and poor sea conditions, as well as the numerous semi-submerged rocks and reefs that abound in the area. narrow.

Natural resources

The Bass Strait has gas and oil fields. The eastern field, known as the Gippsland Basin, was discovered in the 1960s and is located 50 km from the Gippsland coast. The fields are located about 50 to 65 km off the Gippsland coast at depths of about 70 m. Hydrocarbons are shipped by pipeline to processing centers and refineries located at Longford, Western Port, Altona and Geelong, and by tankers. to New South Wales. The reserves in the western area, known as the Otway Basin, were discovered in the 1990s and exploitation began in 2005.

In June 2017, the Victorian Government announced a three-year feasibility study for Australia's first offshore wind farm. The project, which could feature 250 wind turbines within an area of 574 km², is planned to supply around 8,000 GWh of electricity, representing around 18% of Victoria's energy use and replacing much of the plant's output Hazelwood Power Plant, which closed in early 2017.

Infrastructures

Transportation

The fastest and cheapest way to cross Bass Strait is by plane. The main airlines to do so are Qantas, Jetstar Airways and Virgin Blue. Major airports in Tasmania include Hobart International Airport and Launceston Airport. Minor airports are served by Regional Express, with flights generally serving only as far as Melbourne and the Bass Strait Islands.

The sea route can be traveled by the Spirit of Tasmania company ferries, which transport both passengers and cars and are based in Devonport, Tasmania. The route runs between this city and Station Pier, Melbourne.

Energy

The Basslink high-voltage direct current cable has been in service since 2006. This cable has the capacity to transport up to 630 megawatts of electrical power across the strait, and is the longest underwater electrical power cable in the world.

Alinta is the owner of an undersea gas pipeline that supplies natural gas to industrial customers located around George Town, as well as the Powerco gas network in Tasmania.

Communications

The first submarine cable to cross Bass Strait was laid in 1859. With one end at Cape Otway, Victoria, it crossed the strait touching the King and Three Hummock Islands and reached the island of Tasmania at Stanley. From there it extended to the city of George Town. However, the cable began to fail a few weeks after it was completed, and by 1861 it stopped working completely.

Tasmania is currently connected to the rest of Australia through two fiber optic cables operated by the Telstra company. Other submarine cables include:

Delimitation of the IHO

The highest international authority on the delimitation of seas for the purposes of maritime navigation, the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), considers Bass Strait as a sea. In his world reference publication, "Limits of oceans and seas", 3rd edition of 1953, he assigns it the identification number 62A (no. 62 is the Great Australian Bight) and defines it as the following way:

West.
The Eastern Limit of the Great Australian Bay (62). [A line from Corporal Otway, Australia, King Island and then Grim, the northwest end of Tasmania. ]
East.
The western boundary of the sea of Tasmania (63) between Gabo Island and Eddystone tip. [West boundary of the Sea of Tasmania (63). A line from Gabo Island (close Howe, 37°30'S) to the northeast tip of the East Sister Island (148°E) and from there along the Meridian to the island of Flinders, beyond this island a line that goes east from the banks Vansittart to Barren Island, and from Cape Barren (the easternmost point of the island of Barstone) to the east end

Limits of oceans and seap. 36.

Discovery and exploration

For the aboriginal peoples

The Tasmanian Aborigines arrived in Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago, during the last ice age, across a wide prehistoric land bridge called the Bassian Plain between the present-day southern coast. of Victoria (from Wilsons Promontory to Cape Otway) and the northern coasts of Tasmania (from Cape Portland to Cape Grim). Once the glacial period ended, sea level rose and flooded the Bass Plain to form Bass Strait about 8,000 years ago, leaving them isolated from the Australian continent. Aboriginal people lived on Flinders Island until about 4,000 years ago.

According to the recorded language groups, there were at least three successive waves of Aboriginal colonization.

For the Europeans

The strait was possibly discovered by Captain Abel Tasman when he mapped the coast of Tasmania in 1642. On December 5, Tasman followed the eastern coast north to see how far it went. As the land turned northwest at Eddystone Point, he attempted to follow it but his ships were suddenly struck by the Roaring Forties screaming across Bass Strait. Tasman's mission was to find the southern continent, no more. islands, so he swerved east and continued his hunt for the mainland.

The next European to approach the strait was Captain James Cook on the Endeavor in April 1770. However, after sailing for two hours westward into the strait against the wind, he turned around to the east and noted in his diary that he had "doubts as to whether they (i.e. Van Diemen's Land and New Netherland) are one land or not,"

The strait was named after George Bass, after he and Matthew Flinders sailed through it while circumnavigating Van Diemen's Land (now called Tasmania) on the sloop Norfolk in 1798-99. On Flinders' recommendation, New South Wales Governor John Hunter named 'Bass's Straits' in 1800. (Bass Strait) to the strip of water located between the mainland and Van Diemen's Land. It later became known as Bass Strait (Bass Strait). In Spanish it is called Bass Strait.

The existence of the strait had been suggested in 1797 by the captain of the 1796 ship Sydney Cove when he arrived in Sydney after deliberately running his ship aground and becoming stranded on Preservation Island.), at the eastern end of the strait. He reported that the strong southwest swell and tides and currents suggested that the island was in a channel linking the Pacific and the southern Indian Ocean. Thus, Governor Hunter wrote to Joseph Banks in August 1797 that he seemed certain that a strait existed.

When news of the discovery of Bass Strait in 1798 reached Europe, the French government sent a reconnaissance expedition commanded by Nicolas Baudin. This prompted Governor Philip Gidley King to send two ships from Sydney to the island to establish a garrison in Hobart.