One of the most famous places in the world is the Caribbean SeaThis name is derived from the Caribs, a native people who occupied parts of the Lesser Antilles and South America. The Caribbean Sea has crystal-clear, warm waters that provide extraordinary beauty. Thanks to this beauty, it attracts millions of tourists throughout the year.
Therefore, we are going to dedicate this article to tell you all the characteristics of the Caribbean Sea, geology and formation of the Caribbean Sea.
Key features
It is a type of the sea that is formed by a suboceanic basin and belongs to the Atlantic Ocean. It's located in a tropical region, so its waters are primarily warm. These crystal-clear waters give it an incalculable beauty. Add to this the abundant vegetation, flora, and fauna surrounding it, and this place becomes a true paradise.
We speak of a large body of salty water that is located exactly southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and west of the Atlantic Ocean, between latitudes 9º and 22º North and longitudes 89º and 60º West. Between the limits of this sea we find several parts. On the one hand, it limits to the south with Colombia, Venezuela and Panama. As for the west, it borders Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Honduras and Belize. If we go further north we see that it borders Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in its northern part.
The Caribbean Sea is a fairly wide place with turquoise blue water color and little waves. The most normal thing is that the average depth is around 2.200 meters. The deepest point in this sea is the Cayman Trench, which registers 7,686 meters below sea level. If we expand the view to the entire territory that the Caribbean Sea covers, we see that it is home to more than 7.000 islands, islets and reefs. Many of these places are too small to be inhabited by people.
The entire Caribbean region has been politically established and since 2015 it has been established that this sea It comes to bathe the coasts of 12 continental countries and 22 island territories. This entire area is known today as the Caribbean region. Of all the islands, Cuba is the largest, while Anguilla is the smallest. If you'd like to learn more about other features of the seas, you can consult our section on seas and oceans.
The Caribbean Sea
If we consider the total surface area of the Caribbean Sea, we find a surface area of 2.7 million square kilometers. This makes it one of the largest seas in the world. It's important to distinguish between ocean and sea. Seas have a much smaller surface area. Therefore, this is considered one of the largest in the world.
Among its characteristics, we find that it is a very homogeneous sea. Its salinity is not very high, but its temperature is quite high. They have average salinity values of 3.6%, While its average temperature is 27 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit) and rarely varies more than XNUMX degrees Celsius throughout the year, salinity levels are highest in the winter months. This is because the temperature drops, and the water is less soluble. This is why salt concentrations increase. In contrast, the season from June to December has the lowest salinity.
One of the disadvantages of this sea is that it is frequently hit by hurricanes. Despite its incalculable beauty due to its crystalline waters and its density of biodiversity, it is not immune to hurricanes. Being located in a tropical region, it tends to have greater problems with temperature changes and fronts. On average, around nine tropical storms form in the Caribbean Sea and can become hurricanes. To better understand these storms, you can consult the Characteristics and magnitude of Hurricane MariaNot all tropical storms become hurricanes, but due to climate change, this probability is increasing by the year. Not only does the probability of a hurricane increase, but so does its intensity.
Formation of the Caribbean Sea
Currently this body of water is on the Caribbean plate. This tectonic plate is the one that borders the North American and South American plates, the Nazca plates and the Cocos plates. Scientists have studied the possible origin of this sea and found that thought to be 180 million years oldIt was during the Devonian period that a basin known as the Proto-Caribbean already existed. It was here that this sea began to form as a result of the split of the supercontinent that then ruled the planet under the name of Pangaea.
Because Pangea split into two parts under the name of Laurasia and Gondwana, the continental drift began to act. With the movement it experienced, keeping to the north and its approach to Laurasia in the Carboniferous period, the size of the sea was noticeably reduced. However, later, during the Triassic period, the land masses began to suffer cracks that managed to open new lands. It was already in the Jurassic period where the Gulf of Mexico began to grow as it does today. Other cracks appeared during the Jurassic period and filled the water basins in the southern part.
For millions of years, the Caribbean Sea increased its volume of water and already in the Cretaceous acquired a shape similar to today. This happened 85 million years agoDue to plate tectonics, a segment of oceanic crust between 8 and 21 kilometers thick moved to the Caribbean Basin. Even today, the oceanic crust remains on the seafloor.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about the Caribbean Sea and its characteristics.