Coastal And Marine Features Codexery

Cape Hatteras

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Cape Hatteras

via Wikipedia: Cape Hatteras · see source

Cape Hatteras is located on the Outer Banks, a chain of barrier islands that arch away from the U.S. mainland and back, and it marks the meeting point of the East Coast's two major basins.[1] Three barrier islands—Bodie Island, Hatteras Island, and Ocracoke Island—are partially protected by Cape Hatteras National Seashore.[2] Diamond Shoals is the name given to the collective shoals off the cape.[1]

Key facts and history

The name Hatteras is the sixth oldest surviving English place-name in the United States, originating from an inlet named "Hatrask" in 1585 by Sir Richard Grenville.[3] Cape Hatteras lies in the chain of barrier islands that arch out into the Atlantic Ocean, creating sheltered lagoons and estuaries.[1] The area is known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" due to the many ships lost off its coast.[4] In 1956, the Naval Facility Cape Hatteras was established as the eighth of nine shore terminals for the Atlantic Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS).[5]

The Army Corps of Engineers filled that inlet with sand, a process that took close to two months.[6] Hurricane Dorian came ashore at Cape Hatteras on September 6, 2019.[6]

What the cited sources add

According to the same source, flaming tankers burned so brightly off the Outer Banks that one could read a newspaper by the glow on shore.[7] The final toll of "Torpedo Junction" included more than eighty sunken ships and hundreds of lives lost in waters off North Carolina.[7]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Cape Hatteras" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Heavey, "Point Well Taken", The Washington Post, June 5, 1996, p. C9 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Cape Hatteras" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: USC 459 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Cape Hatteras" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Stewart, "Names on the Land: a Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States", Random House, 1945, p. 23; Gannett, Henry, "The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States", Govt. Print. Off., 1905, p. 152 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Cape Hatteras" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Torpedo Junction (U.S. National Park Service)", www.nps.gov (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Cape Hatteras" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) History 1950 - 2010", IUSS/CAESAR Alumni Association; Commander, Undersea Surveillance, "Naval Facility Cape Hatteras January 1956 - June 1982", United States Navy; United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services, "Military Construction Authorization, Fiscal Year 1964: Hearings ... Eighty-eighth Congress, First Session, on S. 1101 - H.R. 6500, a Bill Authorizing Certain (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Cape Hatteras" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Culver, "Hurricane Dorian makes landfall over North Carolina's Cape Hatteras as Category 1 storm", USA Today, September 6, 2019 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. "Torpedo Junction (U.S. National Park Service)", www.nps.gov. facts only, no text reused. nps.gov

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Cape Hatteras (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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