Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba to Puerto Rico, the Lesser Antilles to the east from the Virgin Islands to Trinidad and Tobago, South America to the south from the Venezuelan coastline to the Colombian coastline, and Central America and the Yucatán Peninsula to the west from Panama to Mexico. The geopolitical region around the Caribbean Sea, including the numerous islands of the West Indies and adjacent coastal areas in the mainland of the Americas, is known as the Caribbean.
The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas on Earth, with an area of about. The sea's deepest point is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at below sea level. The Caribbean coastline has many gulfs and bays: the Gulf of Gonâve, the Gulf of Venezuela, the Gulf of Darién, Golfo de los Mosquitos, the Gulf of Paria and the Gulf of Honduras.
File:Reef 247.jpg|thumb|upright|Coral reef near Soufrière Quarter, Saint Lucia
The Caribbean Sea has the world's second-largest barrier reef, the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. It runs along the Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras coasts.
History
The name Caribbean derives from the Caribs, one of the region's dominant native people at the time of Europe and contact during the late 15th century. After Christopher Columbus landed in The Bahamas in 1492 and later discovered some of the islands in the Caribbean, the Spanish term Antillas applied to the lands; stemming from this, the Sea of the Antilles became a common alternative name for the "Caribbean Sea" in various European languages. Spanish dominance in the region remained undisputed during the first century of European colonization.From the 16th century, Europeans visiting the Caribbean region distinguished the "South Sea" from the "North Sea".
File:Tulum-Seaside-2010.jpg|thumb|Tulum, a Mayan city on the coast of the Caribbean in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico
The Caribbean Sea was unknown to the populations of Eurasia until after 1492, when Christopher Columbus sailed into Caribbean waters in search of a sea route to Asia. At that time, the Americas were generally unknown to most Europeans, although they had been visited in the 10th century by the Vikings. After Columbus discovered the islands, the area was quickly colonized by several Western cultures. After the colonization of the Caribbean islands, the Caribbean Sea became a busy area for European-based maritime trade and transport. The commerce eventually attracted pirates such as Samuel Bellamy and Blackbeard.
the area is home to 22 island territories and borders 12 continental countries.
Extent
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Caribbean Sea as follows:Although Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados are on the same continental shelf, they are considered to be in the Atlantic Ocean rather than in the Caribbean Sea.
Geology
The Caribbean Sea is an oceanic sea on the Caribbean Plate. The Caribbean Sea is separated from the ocean by several island arcs of various ages. The youngest stretches from the Lesser Antilles to the Virgin Islands to north of Trinidad and Tobago, which is in the Atlantic. This arc was formed by a collision of the South American Plate with the Caribbean Plate. It included active and extinct volcanoes such as Mount Pelee, the Quill on Sint Eustatius in the Caribbean Netherlands, La Soufrière in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Morne Trois Pitons on Dominica. The larger islands in the northern part of the sea, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico lie on an older island arc.File:Caribbean Sea Gulf of Mexico shaded relief bathymetry land map.png|thumb|upright=1.4|The shaded relief map of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico area
The Caribbean Sea is estimated to be 160 million to 180 million years old and formed when a horizontal fracture in Pangaea split the supercontinent during the Mesozoic Era. It is assumed the proto-Caribbean basin existed in the Devonian period and, in the early Carboniferous movement of Gondwana to the north and its convergence with the Euramerica basin, decreased in size. The next stage in the formation of the Caribbean Sea began in the Triassic. Powerful rifting led to the formation of narrow troughs stretching from modern Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico's west coast, which deposited siliciclastic sedimentary rocks.
In the early Jurassic, due to a powerful marine transgression, water broke into the current area of the Gulf of Mexico, creating a vast shallow pool. Deep basins emerged in the Caribbean during the Middle Jurassic rifting. The emergence of the basins marked the beginning of the Atlantic Ocean and contributed to the destruction of Pangaea at the end of the late Jurassic.
During the Cretaceous, the Caribbean acquired a shape close to today's. In the early Paleogene, due to marine regression, the Caribbean became separated from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean by the lands of Cuba and Haiti. The Caribbean remained like this for most of the Cenozoic until the Holocene, when rising ocean levels restored communication with the Atlantic Ocean.
The Caribbean's floor is composed of suboceanic sediments of deep red clay in the deep basins and troughs. On continental slopes and ridges, calcareous silts are found. Clay minerals have likely been deposited by the mainland river Orinoco and the Magdalena River. Deposits on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico have thicknesses of about. Upper sedimentary layers date to the Mesozoic to Cenozoic, and the lower layers to the Paleozoic to Mesozoic.
The Caribbean seafloor is divided into five basins separated from one another by underwater ridges and mountain ranges. Atlantic Ocean water enters the Caribbean through the Anegada Passage between the Lesser Antilles and the Virgin Islands and the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti.
The Yucatán Channel between Mexico and Cuba links the Gulf of Mexico with the Caribbean. The deepest points of the sea lie in Cayman Trough, with depths reaching approximately. Despite that, the Caribbean Sea is considered relatively shallow compared to other bodies of water. The pressure of the South American Plate to the east of the Caribbean causes the Lesser Antilles to have high volcanic activity, and a severe eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902 resulted in many casualties.
The Caribbean seafloor is also the home of two oceanic trenches: the Cayman Trench and the Puerto Rico Trench, which put the area at a high risk of earthquakes. Underwater earthquakes pose a threat of generating tsunamis, which could have devastating effects on the Caribbean islands. Scientific data reveal that over the past 500 years, the area has experienced a dozen earthquakes of magnitude 7.5 or higher. Most recently, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, on January 12, 2010.
- List of islands in the Caribbean
Oceanography
The Caribbean's depth in its wider basins and deepwater temperatures are similar to those of the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantic deepwater is thought to spill into the Caribbean and contribute to the general deepwater of the Caribbean Sea. The surface water acts as an extension of the northern Atlantic as the Guiana Current and part of the North Equatorial Current enter the sea on the east. On the western side of the sea, the trade winds influence a northerly current, which causes an upwelling and a rich fishery near Yucatán.
Ecology
The Caribbean is the home of about 9% of the world's coral reefs, covering about, most of which are located off the Caribbean islands and the Central American coast. Among them, the Belize Barrier Reef stands out, with an area of, which was declared a World Heritage Site in 1996. It forms part of the Great Mayan Reef and, being more than in length, is the world's second longest. It runs along the Caribbean coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.Since 2005, unusually warm Caribbean waters have been increasingly threatening the coral reefs. Coral reefs support some of the most diverse marine habitats in the world, but they are fragile ecosystems. When tropical waters become unusually warm for extended periods of time, microscopic plants called zooxanthellae, which are symbiotic partners living within the coral polyp tissues, die off. These plants provide food for the corals and give them their color. The death and dispersal of these tiny plants is called coral bleaching and can devastate large areas of reef. More than 42% of corals are completely bleached, and 95% are experiencing some whitening. Historically, the Caribbean is thought to contain 14% of the world's coral reefs.
The habitats supported by the reefs are critical to activities such as fishing and scuba diving, and they provide an annual economic value to Caribbean nations of US$3.1–4.6 billion. Continued reef destruction could severely damage the region's economy. The Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region came into effect in 1986 to protect the various endangered marine life of the Caribbean by forbidding human activities that would advance the continued destruction of such marine life in various areas. Currently, the convention has been ratified by 15 countries. Several charitable organizations have formed to preserve Caribbean marine life, such as Sea Turtle Conservancy, which seeks to study and protect sea turtles while educating about them.
In 2012, the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico conducted a regional study funded by the Department of Technical Cooperation of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in which specialists from 11 Latin American countries plus Jamaica participated. The study's findings indicate that heavy metals, including mercury, arsenic, and lead, have been detected in the coastal zone of the Caribbean Sea. Analysis of toxic metals and hydrocarbons is based on the investigation of coastal sediments that have accumulated to depths of less than 50 meters over the past 150 years. Project results were presented in Vienna at the forum "Water Matters" and the 2011 General Conference of that multilateral organization.
After the Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean Sea is the second-most-polluted sea. Pollution in the form of up to 300,000 tonnes of solid garbage dumped into the Caribbean Sea each year is progressively endangering marine ecosystems, wiping out species, and harming the livelihoods of local people, who rely primarily on tourism and fishing.