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Concept
Bass Strait
Summary
Bass Strait (bæs) is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Boundary Islet). The strait provides the most direct waterway between the Great Australian Bight and the Tasman Sea, and is also the only maritime route into the economically prominent Port Phillip Bay.
Formed 8,000 years ago by rising sea levels at the end of the last glacial period, the strait was named after English explorer and physician George Bass (1771-1803) by European colonists.
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of Bass Strait as follows:
On the west. The eastern limit of the Great Australian Bight [being a line from Cape Otway, Australia, to King Island and thence to Cape Grim, the northwest extreme of Tasmania].
On the east. The western limit of the Tasman Sea between Gabo Island and Eddystone Point [being a line from Gabo Island (near Cape Howe, 37°30′S) to the northeast point of East Sister Island (148°E) thence along the 148th meridian to Flinders Island; beyond this Island a line running to the Eastward of the Vansittart Shoals to [Cape] Barren Island, and from Cape Barren (the easternmost point of [Cape] Barren Island) to Eddystone Point (41°S) [in Tasmania].
Some authorities consider the strait to be part of the Pacific Ocean as in the never-approved 2002 IHO Limits of Oceans and Seas draft. In the currently in-force IHO 1953 draft, it is instead associated with the Great Australian Bight; the Bight is numbered 62, while the Bass Strait is designated 62-A.
The Australian Hydrographic Service does not consider it to be part of its expanded definition of the Southern Ocean, but rather states that it lies with the Tasman Sea. The strait between the Furneaux Islands and Tasmania is Banks Strait, a subdivision of Bass Strait.
Aboriginal Tasmanians arrived in Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago during the last glacial period, across a broad prehistoric land bridge called the Bassian Plain between the nowaday southern Victoria coastline (from Wilsons Promontory to Cape Otway) and the northern Tasmanian shores (from Cape Portland to Cape Grim).
Official source
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