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Map of the Spanish Caribbean
Islands 1600 Spanish Overseas territories Northern America Turks and
Caicos Islands (1492-1516, 1516-1678) * Islas Turcas y Caicos The
Bahamas (1492-1516, 1516-1648) *Islas Lucayas Bermuda (1503-1516,
1516-1609) *Carabela/Isla de los Diablos Greater Antilles Cuba
(1492-1762, 1763-1898) *Juana Cayman Islands (UK) (1503-1670) *Islas de
las Tortugas La Española/Hispanola (1492-1795, 1801-1822) Dominican
Republic (1492-1795, 1801-1822, 1861-1863) *Santo Domingo Haiti
(1492-1793) *Santa María Jamaica (1492-1655) *Isla Santiago Puerto Rico
(US) (1493-1898) *San Juan Bautista Lesser Antilles Leeward Islands:
Virgin Islands (1493-1587) *Islas Once Mil Vírgenes / Islas Vírgenes St.
Thomas (US) (1493-1587) St. John (US) (1493-1587) St. Croix (US)
(1493-1587) Water Island (US) (1493-1587) British Virgin Islands (UK)
(1493-1648) *Islas Once Mil Vírgenes / Islas Vírgenes Tortola (UK)
(1493-1648) Virgin Gorda (UK) (1493-1672) Anegada (UK) (1493-1672) Jost
Van Dyke (UK) (1493-1672) Anguilla (UK) (1500-1631, 1631-1650) *Isla de
la Anguila Saint Martin/Sint Maarten (France/Neth.) (1493-1631) *San
Martín Saint-Barthélemy (Fr.) (1493-1648) *San Bartolomeo Saba (Neth.)
(1493-1640) *Saba/San Cristóbal Sint Eustatius (Neth.) (1493-1640) *San
Eustaquio St. Kitts and Nevis (1493-1628) *Nuestra Señora de las Nieves
Saint Kitts (1493-1628) *San Cristóbal Nevis (1493-1628) *Nieves Antigua
and Barbuda Barbuda (1493-1628) *Santa Dulcina Antigua (1493-1632)
*Santa María de la Antigua Redonda (1493-1632) *Santa María la Redonda
Montserrat (UK) (1493-1632) *Santa María de Monstserrat Guadeloupe (Fr.)
(1493-1631) *Santa Guadalupe Windward Islands: Dominica (1493-1635)
*Domingo Martinique (Fr.) (1502-1635) *Martinino Saint Lucia (St. Lucia)
(1502-1660) *Santa Lucía Barbados (1492-1620) *Los Barbados/El Barbudo
St. Vincent and the Grenadines (1498-1627) *San Vicente Saint Vincent
the Grenadines Grenada (1498-1650) *Concepción Carriacou & Petite
Martinique (Grenada) Trinidad & Tobago (1498-1628) *Santísima e
Asunción Aruba (Neth.) (1499-1648) *Aruba/Oroba Curaçao (Neth.)
(1499-1634) *Curasao/Isla de los Gigantes Bonaire (Neth.) (1499-1635) *
Bonaire/Buon Aire Viceroyalty of New Granada Los Roques Archipelago
(Ven) La Orchila (Ven) La Tortuga (Ven) La Blanquilla (Ven) Margarita
Island (Ven) Coche (Ven) Cubagua (Ven) Other islands (Ven) *Founded
Spanish names
The
Caribbean
Sea is littered with shipwrecks and dotted with dozens of paradise
islands, where
pirates
might have buried their treasure. It is also awash with Sargassum, that
washes up on shores to ruin tourism and beach ecology. The proliferate
seaweed has spread from the Sargassum Sea to the South Atlantic, mainly
because of nutrient leaching from agricultural activity on land, and warming
of the acid oceans. Leading to a bumper crop, that at the moment, is not
harvested.
The
Guantanamo Bay detention camp (Spanish: Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo)
in this fictional John
Storm ocean adventure, is a United States military prison within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Gitmo, on the coast of Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.
Cuba
- Is the largest island in the Caribbean by size, with just
over 11 million inhabitants.
ISLANDS
BY
POPULATION
1
Cuba 11,252,999
2 Haiti
11,263,077 (Hispaniola)
3 Dominican Republic 10,766,998 (Hispaniola)
4 Puerto Rico (US) 3,508,000
5 Jamaica 2,729,000
6 Trinidad and Tobago 1,357,000
7 Guadeloupe (France) 405,000
8 Martinique (France) 383,000
9 Bahamas 379,000
10 Barbados 283,000
11 Saint Lucia 172,000
12 Curaçao (Netherlands) 157,000
13 Aruba (Netherlands) 110,000
14 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 110,000
15 United States Virgin Islands
105,000
16 Grenada 104,000
17 Antigua and Barbuda 89,000
18 Dominica 71,000
19 Cayman Islands (UK) 59,000
20 Saint Kitts and Nevis 46,000
21 Sint Maarten (Netherlands) 39,000
22 Turks and Caicos Islands (UK) 37,000
23 Saint Martin (France) 36,000
24 British Virgin Islands (UK) 31,000
25 Caribbean Netherlands
26,000
26 Anguilla (UK) 14,000
27 Saint Barthélemy (France) 10,000
28 Montserrat (UK) 5,000
29
Tortuga 25,936
30
Roatán 110,000
31
Povidencia
Isla
32
Dead
Chest Island (uninhabited)
The
New Sargassum Sea is clearly visible, and a growing concern, stemming from global
warming and fertilizer run off
CARIBBEAN ISLANDS - WEST INDIES
The region, situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, has more than
700 islands, islets, reefs and cays (see the list of Caribbean islands).
Three island arcs delineate the eastern and northern edges of the
Caribbean Sea: The Greater Antilles to the north, and the Lesser
Antilles and Leeward Antilles to the south and east. Together with the
nearby Lucayan Archipelago, these island arcs make up the West Indies.
The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands are sometimes
considered to be a part of the Caribbean, even though they are neither
within the
Caribbean Sea
nor on its border. However, The Bahamas is a full member state of the
Caribbean Community and the Turks and Caicos Islands are an associate
member. Belize, Guyana, and Suriname are also considered part of the
Caribbean despite being mainland countries and they are full member
states of the Caribbean Community and the Association of Caribbean
States. Several regions of mainland North and South America are also
often seen as part of the Caribbean because of their political and
cultural ties with the region. These include Belize, the Caribbean
region of Colombia, the Venezuelan Caribbean, Quintana Roo in Mexico
(consisting of Cozumel and the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán
Peninsula), and The Guianas (Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Guayana
Region in Venezuela, and Amapá in Brazil).
The islands of the Caribbean (the West Indies) are often regarded as
a subregion of North America, though sometimes they are included in
Middle America or then left as a subregion of their own and are
organized into 30 territories including sovereign states, overseas
departments, and dependencies. From 15 December 1954, to 10 October
2010, there was a country known as the Netherlands Antilles composed of
five states, all of which were Dutch dependencies. From 3 January 1958,
to 31 May 1962, there was also a political union called the West Indies
Federation composed of ten English-speaking Caribbean territories, all
of which were then British dependencies.
These islands include active volcanoes, low-lying atolls, raised
limestone islands, and large fragments of continental crust containing
tall mountains and insular rivers. Each of the three archipelagos of the
West Indies has a unique origin and geologic composition.
SARGASSUM:
Represents a present
threat to the economics of the Caribbean Islands, the Gulf of
Mexico, and
African west coast, but is also a potential asset if it can be equitably harvested and used for:
GREATER ANTILLES
The Greater Antilles is geologically the oldest of the three
archipelagos and includes both the largest islands (Cuba, Jamaica,
Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico) and the tallest mountains (Pico Duarte,
Blue Mountain, Pic la Selle, Pico Turquino) in the Caribbean. The
islands of the Greater Antilles are composed of strata of different
geological ages including Precambrian fragmented remains of the North
American Plate (older than 541 million years), Jurassic aged limestone
(201.3-145 million years ago), as well as island arc deposits and
oceanic crust from the Cretaceous (145-66 million years ago).
The Greater Antilles originated near the Isthmian region of present
day Central America in the Late Cretaceous (commonly referred to as the
Proto-Antilles), then drifted eastward arriving in their current
location when colliding with the Bahama Platform of the North American
Plate ca. 56 million years ago in the late Paleocene. This collision
caused subduction and volcanism in the Proto-Antillean area and likely
resulted in continental uplift of the Bahama Platform and changes in sea
level. The Greater Antilles have continuously been exposed since the
start of the Paleocene or at least since the Middle Eocene (66-40
million years ago), but which areas were above sea level throughout the
history of the islands remains unresolved.
The oldest rocks in the Greater Antilles are located in Cuba. They
consist of metamorphosed graywacke, argillite, tuff, mafic igneous
extrusive flows, and carbonate rock. It is estimated that nearly 70% of
Cuba consists of karst limestone. The Blue Mountains of Jamaica are a
granite outcrop rising over 2,000 meters, while the rest of the island
to the west consists mainly of karst limestone. Much of
Hispaniola,
Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands were formed by the collision of the
Caribbean Plate with the North American Plate and consist of 12 island
arch terranes. These terranes consist of oceanic crust, volcanic and
plutonic rock.
Map
of the North and South Atlantic
Oceans, showing the Sargasso Sea &
New
Sargasso Sea. The Cleaner
Ocean Foundation is concerned that as ocean
warming and acidification continues, with addition leaching of fertilizers
from
farmland, to support the growing human population (who will need food), that
sargassum migration could occur, seeding the pestilent macro algae in the Indian
and Pacific
oceans.
BIOMASS - BUILDING
MATERIALS - CANCER
TREATMENTS - CLOTHING
& SHOES - CO2
SEQUESTRATION - COSMETICS
FERTILIZERS - FOODS - MEDICINES - MINERALS - PACKAGING - SUPPLEMENTS - VITAMINS
LESSER ANTILLES
The Lesser Antilles is a volcanic island arc rising along the
leading edge of the Caribbean Plate due to the subduction of the
Atlantic seafloor of the North American and South American plates. Major
islands of the Lesser Antilles likely emerged less than 20 Ma, during
the Miocene. The volcanic activity that formed these islands began in
the Paleogene, after a period of volcanism in the Greater Antilles
ended, and continues today. The main arc of the Lesser Antilles runs
north from the coast of Venezuela to the Anegada Passage, a strait
separating them from the Greater Antilles, and includes 19 active
volcanoes.
LUCAYAN ARCHIPELAGO
The Lucayan Archipelago includes The Bahamas and the Turks and
Caicos Islands, a chain of barrier reefs and low islands atop the Bahama
Platform. The Bahama Platform is a carbonate block formed of marine
sediments and fixed to the North American Plate. The emergent islands of
the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos likely formed from accumulated
deposits of wind-blown sediments during Pleistocene glacial periods of
lower sea level.
SARGASSUM
STATE OF EMERGENCY
During
a talk at the University of West Indies, Edmund Bartlett, co-chair at
the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Center, said that
the annual cost of cleaning-up the Caribbean islands was around 120
million dollars.
Quintana Roo’s Government reported that in 2018 they removed 522,226
tons of sargassum from the public beaches and coastal zones, which
represented an investment of 17 million dollars. For 2019 and 2020 there
are no concise figures.
The mentioned amount of money is aside from what each hotel
allocates to clean-up its beach-front every day, and this cost could be
up to 60 thousand dollars annually for a medium size hotel, according to
hotel owners.
In June of 2019, the first International convention to address the
sargassum problem was held in Cancun, Mexico. At this meeting,
representatives from 13 Caribbean countries committed to working
together through public policies and knowledge production to deal with
this phenomenon. The commitment was endorsed in a second meeting held on
the island of Guadalupe in October of the same year.
NEW SARGASSO SEA
It is a relatively new phenomenon of sargassum accumulation between
the coasts of Brazil and Africa, in the South Atlantic, which some have
called “New
Sargasso
Sea.” Alfonso Aguirre Muñoz, former Director-General of the
Group of Ecology and Conservation Islands, explains that the sargassum
biomass originates along the eastern Atlantic coast of Africa and the
mouth of the Congo River and is swept along by marine currents that
circulate through tropical latitudes, passing across the mouth of the
Amazon River where it is fed by the increasing outflow of nutrients,
along the northeastern coast of Brazil, finally reaching the Caribbean
Sea and continuing on to the coast of Florida through the Gulf of
Mexico.
Caribbean waters are historically “oligotrophic”, meaning they
typically have a very low nutrient load, hence its picturesque blue
color and legendary transparency. But when the sargassum algae reach the
coast, they completely transform ecosystems and landscape.
Since 2015, some Caribbean countries have taken measures to mitigate
the effects of sargassum on the coasts. In Mexico, the Secretariat of
Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat, by its acronym in Spanish)
issued a series of guidelines for the treatment of algae that turned
into non-formal standards. For example, burying sargassum in the sand is
prohibited – a recurring practice until 2018. There is a specific
machinery allowed to collect sargassum, so it does not damage sea
turtles and algae must be taken to a proper waste disposal.
However, the coasts already show visible impacts.
Hydrogeologist Guadalupe Velazquez, from the Research Center for
Sustainable Development (Cides, by its acronym in Spanish), indicates
that in the town of Puerto Morelos in Quintana Roo, beaches have
suffered from serious erosion and compaction, because in the process of
removing algae, many kilos of sand are also taken away, in addition to
the pressure caused by the continuous crossing of machinery.
The problems caused by the excessive landfall of sargassum do not
end when it is taken off the beach, because to date only one
municipality, Puerto Morelos, has set up a final disposal site with a
geomembrane to avoid the pollution of soil by leachates. Other
municipalities, in the best of cases, dispose of sites specifically set
up for this type of organic waste, located far from urban zones.
Alejandro López Tamayo, president of the Centinelas del Agua (Water
Sentinels) organization, explains that the Yucatan Peninsula region in
Mexico has a system of porous karstic ground, with an aquifer a few
meters deep. Without appropriate processing, the leachates released
during the rotting of sargassum rotting easily seep into the water table
and the aquifer, polluting the soil and water.
MEXICO'S MANAGEMENT TO DEAL WITH SARGASSUM
For five years, Mexican government has failed to contain or reduce
the problem. During the first years, Quintana Roo’s government,
municipalities, and hotels were in charge of the beach cleaning work.
That entailed investments of many millions of pesos to build barriers,
purchase machinery, pay workers and transport and dispose of the waste.
In 2019, the Quintana Roo´s Government Advisory Council to manage
sargassum was created, and in conjunction with members of the scientific
community and business owners, several initiatives for the integrated
management of sargassum were started, from monitoring and collection at
sea, on the beaches, to final disposal and even industrialization
(turning the waste into useful by-products). The proposed projects would
be funded with a joint contribution of the three levels of
Government.
However, because of some conflicts among the stakeholders and the
outrage arising from suspected interference from an official in the
drafting of contracts — whose connection to the alleged scandal was not
verified — the main project nicknamed “Caribbean Shield” was discarded.
Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s President, ordered the Secretariat to
take charge of the issue, which he said he “inherited from other
governments” and which he claimed was “amplified” to criticize his
governance.
After the announced decision in June of 2019, the Secretariat of the
Navy (Semar, by its acronym in Spanish), took the lead in coordinating
strategy with Quintana Roo’s Secretariat of Ecology and Environment
(SEMA, by its acronym in Spanish) and the municipalities along the
coastline.
One of the first strategies implemented by the Semar was the
collection of sargassum in the open sea, following up on the Advisory
Council’s recommendations. Five deep draft vessels were assigned to
carry out this task.
Nevertheless, the support from the federal agency is minimal and
comes with high operational costs. From 2019 to September 2020, the
Semar reported collecting 304 tons of sargassum in the sea, barely 1.6
percent of the 18,317 tons collected on public beaches by municipal city
councils in Quintana Roo.
Sargassum represents a threat to the Mexican Caribbean tourism
industry, the most powerful in Latin America. “If a prompt solution to
the problem is not sought, consequences for the future could be
fateful,” warns Rodríguez Martínez.
Quinta Roo receives 14 million visitors annually, with a
contribution to the national Gross Domestic Product of more than 60
billion pesos, according to reports from the Tourism Secretariat
(Sectur, by its acronym in Spanish).
In order to lead the Latin American tourist market, destinations such as Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum and Cozumel offer the beauty of their beaches as the main attraction.
In beaches with high sargassum concentrations, especially in the
bays and reef lagoons where the algae become stagnant, the color of the
water has changed from turquoise to brown, completely changing the
landscape even when is not the sargassum season. Examples of this
phenomenon can be found on the coasts of Puerto Morelos and Xcalak, as
well as the bays of Sian Ka’an. In addition to the environmental
problems that this represents, brown waters, like a polluted river, are
not attractive to national and foreign tourists.
SOLUTIONS STILL UNCERTAIN
Currently, there are several proposals to harvest and process the sargassum
in the Caribbean, a measure that would solve part of the problem by
transforming the algae into a resource with commercial value, according
to promoters.
One of the most advanced projects is from the company Dianco Mexico,
which will start operations in Cancun in mid April to transform
sargassum into biofertilizer. Another product they plan to produce is
cellulose.
Héctor Romero, the company’s CEO , affirms that the factory will have the capacity to process up to 600 tons of algae.
Other proposals suggest the algae can be used in the livestock feed
industry, in the cosmetic industry and to generate biofuel.
To Adán Caballero, the research available to date on the algae
of the New Sargasso Sea is not enough to establish its potential use,
because the contaminants it contains could represent a risk to public
health.
Map
of Port Royal and Kingston, where the notorious buccaneer, Sir Henry Morgan
was buried.
CITIES
LOST IN INNERSPACE
ATLANTIS
- MEDITERRANEAN SEA
ATLIT-YAM
- ISRAEL
BAIA
- ITALY
DWARKA
- INDIA
PAVLOPETRI
- GREECE
PHANAGORIA
- BLACK SEA
PORT
ROYAL - JAMAICA
RUNGHOLT
- DENMARK
THONIS-HERACLEION
AND ALEXANDRIA - EGYPT
YONAGUNI
JIMA - JAPAN
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