From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Cape Fear, North Carolina is a point of land formed by barrier beaches and the silty outwash of the Cape Fear River, as it drains the southeast coast of North Carolina, United States, south of Wilmington [1]. Cape Fear is the southernmost point of the state, formed where two sweeping arcs of shifting low-lying beach intersect, the result of longshore currents which also form the treacherous, shifting Frying Pan Shoals, part of the ship graveyard of the Atlantic.
Dunes dominated by sea oats occur from the upper beach driftline back to the stable secondary dunes, where they mix with other grasses such as saltmeadow cordgrass and panic grass, withseaside goldenrod, spurge, and other herbss to form a stable salt-tolerant grassland.
The Cape Fear estuary drains the largest watershed in North Carolina, containing 27% of the State's population. The Cape Fear River itself (about 320 km in length) is formed in the Piedmont province by the confluence of the Haw and Deep Rivers in Chatham County, N.C.. It is joined by two tributaries just upstream of Wilmington.
Giovanni da Verrazano, the Italian explorer sailing for France, made landfall at Cape Fear on his voyage to the New World in the spring of 1524 or 1525.
Cape Fear is the title of a highly suspenseful 1962 thriller with Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck and Polly Bergen, with a musical score by Bernard Herrmann. Cape Fear was remade more violently in 1991 by Martin Scorsese with Robert de Niro, Nick Nolte, and Jessica Lange.
See also Geography of North Carolina.
