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Block Island boat and crew hand-lining for cod.
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What’s a Bank?
A bank is a huge shoal—a plateau submerged in relatively shallow ocean waters. A series of immense banks stretches from Newfoundland to southern New England on the edge of the North American continental shelf. The northernmost banks off Newfoundland and Labrador are called the Grand Banks. Georges Bank is an oval-shaped bank, 240 km long by 120 km wide, that lies at the southwestern end of this chain. It is 120 km off the coast of New England and is larger than the state of Massachusetts. Georges Bank is more than 100 m higher than the sea floor of the Gulf of Maine that lies just north of it. During the last Ice Age, when the sea was much lower, Georges Bank was part of the North American mainland.
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