Moreton Bay is a large inlet on the southeastern coast of Queensland, Australia, about 18 miles (29 kilometers) from Brisbane, to whose port on the Brisbane River it forms the gateway. Three large islands, Bribie, Moreton, and North Stradbroke, partly enclose the bay. The islands are popular tourist areas. Stradbroke Island has important deposits of mineral sands (sands that contain valuable minerals), including titanium oxide and zircon. Moreton Island is known for its sand dunes, some of which rise to heights of around 900 feet (275 meters).
The British navigator Captain James Cook named the inlet Morton Bay on May 17, 1770, in honor of a British aristocrat, the Earl of Morton, who was president of the Royal Society, a leading scientific organization. The present spelling comes from a misspelling in the English writer John Hawkesworth’s account of Cook’s voyage published in 1773.
In 1823, the English naval officer and explorer John Oxley surveyed the bay. A convict penal settlement was established at Redcliffe, on Moreton Bay, in 1824. The settlement was moved to the site of present-day Brisbane in 1825. The convicts were removed from the settlement in 1839, and the Moreton Bay area was officially opened to civilian settlement in 1842.
