DOGGER BANK

extensive isolated shoal in the North Sea, lying about 60 miles (100 km) off the northeastern coast of England. It rises 70 feet (20 m) higher than the surrounding sea floor, is 160 miles (260 km) long and 60 miles wide at the 120-foot (35-metre) level, and reaches its shallowest point (50 feet below the sea surface) at its western end. The bank is a huge moraine that was deposited at the southern limit of the last glaciation. For centuries it has been a well-known fishing ground. The large amounts of food available to the fish result in the catch of sizable quantities of plaice, cod, haddock, turbot, dabs, and herring. The origin of the name is obscure, but the Dutch dogger, signifying a trawling vessel, was formerly applied to two-masted ships employed in North Sea fishing and, by extension, to their crews (doggermen) and the fish taken (doggerfish). The lines demarcating the international rights of Great Britain, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Norway to the North Sea intersect just north of the Dogger Bank; all but Norway have rights to the bank itself.