Estuarine Salt Patterns: Classification as seen in the real world PSO 2009 Well-Mixed Delaware Bay Often Well-mixed Willapa Bay on the WA coast Huge Oyster industry Partially Mixed Hudson River Partially Mixed and Huge Chesapeake Bay River flow takes a year to fill Chesapeake II Zhang, X., M. Roman, D. Kimmel, C. McGilliard, and W. Boicourt (2006), Spatial variability in plankton biomass and hydrographic variables along an axial transect in Chesapeake Bay, J. Geophys. Res., 111, C05S11, doi: /2005JC Puget Sound Separate basins, often with shallower sills in between Some stagnant places, some rapidly exchanged Partially mixed and even bigger than Chesapeake Rivers take 5 years to fill 30 4800 30 Mixed Fjord Puget Sound Highly-Stratified, and Frontal Snohomish River, Puget Sound in Whidbey Basin (2 nd largest river in the system) Skagit River Rapidly Varying Yang, Z., Khangaonkar, T., Modeling tidal circulation and stratification in Skagit River estuary, Ocean Modell. (2008), doi: /j.ocemod Low Tide Flood Tide High Tide