What did this ecosystem look like historically?

What did this ecosystem look like historically?

Unfortunately, aside from the basic description of some of Alaska's territorial features from early historic settler accounts, there was no conducive study done on the Alaskan Gulf's ecosystem. Yet, to compensate for this fact, we can understand the way the Alaskan Gulf ecosystem functions. 

SOURCE: http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/explore/ocean463gulala_002_rep.jpg

• A counterclockwise sub-polar gyre extends across the north Pacific and into the Gulf of Alaska, fed by the warm waters of the northern Kuroshio Extension, the extension of the Kuroshio Current. The surface waters are cooled and become less saline due to precipitation as they cross the ocean. Many of the storms that lash the west coast of Canada originate in the Gulf of Alaska. The circulation is completed as the Alaska Current and the Aleutian Current return west along the Alaskan coast and south of the Aleutian Islands. 
• The gulf’s waters are very productive, providing feeding grounds for many species of fish. Pacific salmon spend up to five years at sea, much of it in the gulf and adjacent seas, before returning to spawn in the Asian and North American rivers where they were born.
• SOURCE:  http://oceana.org/en/explore/marine-places/gulf-of-alaska

SOURCE: http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/usgsnps/pltec/worldplates.gif

• The floor of the Gulf of Alaska is peppered with seamounts. There are two main chains: the Patton and Gilbert seamounts, and the Kodiak Seamounts, both running away from the Alaska Peninsula. Their origin is the Cobb Hotspot, situated beneath the spreading center of the Juan de Fuca Plate west of Vancouver Island. The seamounts were created above the hotspot over the last 30 million years, then carried northwest by seafloor spreading.
  
  

  SOURCE: http://oceana.org/en/explore/marine-places/gulf-of-alaska

  
  

  I thought this was pretty cool... 

  
  
  

  SOURCE: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/sites/default/files/styles/ad_slideshow_normal/public/place%20where%20two%20oceans%20meet.JPG?itok=7WFKWIT6

  
  

  While I was researching my ecosystem, I discovered that in the middle of the Alaskan Gulf, two oceans meet. Due to a high imbalance of salt levels between the two, along with a small variance in temperature, the two bodies of water physically don't mix; creating the apparent "split" between them!