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Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Gay Head, Massachusetts

33 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Aquinnah town. It lies in ZIP code area 02535. It sits by Gay Head Cliffs. The Survey maps it on the Squibnocket quadrangle.

Gay Head within Dukes County

Then and now

1887 to 1994

The same ground, surveyed 107 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Gay Head, surveyed 1994
Topographic sheet of Gay Head, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

33 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 5,575 shown

Museums hold 5,575 specimens collected within 10 miles of Gay Head between 1828 and 1975: 3,747 Animalia, 1,293 Plantae, 293 Chromista, 154 Unrecorded, 59 Fungi, 28 Bacteria, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A AND P STARRETT, A., A. B. Hervey and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
A photograph of the species Tipularia discolor, not of this specimenTipularia discolor (Pursh) Nutt.1828OakesMartha's Vineyard
A photograph of the species Apeltes quadracus, not of this specimenApeltes quadracus (Mitchill, 1815)1860D. JordanPenikese Islands
A photograph of the species Bufo fowleri, not of this specimenBufo fowleri Hinckley, 18821860unknownPenikese Island
A photograph of the species Gasterosteus aculeatus, not of this specimenGasterosteus aculeatus Linnaeus, 17581860D. JordanPenikese Islands
A photograph of the species Menidia menidia, not of this specimenMenidia menidia (Linnaeus, 1766)1860unknownPenikese Island
A photograph of the species Acteocina canaliculata, not of this specimenActeocina canaliculata (Say, 1826)1871United States Fish CommissionOff Gay Head
A photograph of the species Actinococcus subcutaneus, not of this specimenActinococcus subcutaneus (Lyngbye ex Hornemann) Rosenvinge1871W. G. FarlowGay Head
A photograph of the species Anguilla rostrata, not of this specimenAnguilla rostrata (Lesueur, 1817)1871U.S. Fish CommissionVineyard Sound
A photograph of the species Astarte crenata, not of this specimenAstarte crenata (J.E.Gray, 1824)1871United States Fish CommissionOff Gay Head and Edgartown
A photograph of the species Centropristis striata, not of this specimenCentropristis striata (Linnaeus, 1758)1899B. BeanMenemsha Bight
A photograph of the species Sterna dougallii, not of this specimenSterna dougallii dougallii Montagu, 18131899Doe, C EDukes County
A photograph of the species Sterna paradisaea, not of this specimenSterna paradisaea Pontoppidan, 17631899C. E. DoeMASSACHUSETTS: Dukes County

All 5,575 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms nearby

2 since 1996

The National Weather Service names Gay Head in 2 storm reports between 1996 and 1999: 2 waterspout. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
October 1999WaterspoutGay Head-no account filed
July 1996WaterspoutGay Head-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Dukes County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Indian Lands0.7 miles33
Lobsterville1.0 miles33
Menemsha2.7 miles33
Nashaquitsa2.9 miles33
Squibnocket3.3 miles33
Chilmark3.7 miles33
Nabs Corner7.3 miles34
West Tisbury7.9 miles33

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 615078. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.