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A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as vrtače and shakeholes, and to openings where surface water enters into underground passages known as ponor, swallow hole or swallet. A cenote is a type of sinkhole that exposes groundwater underneath. Sink and stream sink are more general terms for sites that drain surface water, possibly by infiltration into sediment or crumbled rock.
Saint Ann is the largest parish in Jamaica. It is situated on the north coast of the island, in the county of Middlesex, roughly halfway between the eastern and western ends of the island. It is often called "the Garden Parish of Jamaica" on account of its natural floral beauty. Its capital is Saint Ann's Bay. Saint Ann comprises New Seville, the first Spanish settlement in Jamaica.
Saint Elizabeth, one of Jamaica's largest parishes, is located in the southwest of the island, in the county of Cornwall. Its capital, Black River, is located at the mouth of the Black River, the widest on the island.
The Parish of Manchester is a parish located in west-central Jamaica, in the county of Middlesex. Its capital, Mandeville, is a major business centre. Its St. Paul of the Cross Pro-Cathedral is the episcopal see of the Latin Catholic Diocese of Mandeville.
Cockpit Country is an area in Trelawny and Saint Elizabeth, Saint James, Saint Ann, Manchester and the northern tip of Clarendon parishes in Jamaica. The land is marked by steep-sided hollows, as much as 120 metres (390 ft) deep in places, which are separated by conical hills and ridges. Maroons who had escaped from plantations used the difficult territory for its natural defences to develop communities outside the control of Spanish or British colonists.
Jackson's Bay Cave is a very large cave on the Portland Ridge in Clarendon near the south coast of Jamaica. It is considered to be one of the most beautiful in the Caribbean. It was discovered in 1964. It is part of the Jackson bay cave system, consisting of 14 unconnected caves, and over 9200m of cumulated caves passages mapped since then. The longest of them, Jackson Bay Great Cave is over 3.360 kilometres (2.088 mi) long.
At nearly 200 metres, Smokey Hole Cave in Manchester, Jamaica is the deepest known cave in the island.
Hutchinson's Hole is a large sinkhole named after the 18th century serial killer Lewis Hutchinson, who used the sinkhole to dispose of bodies. Its depth is approximately 98 metres (322 ft), with a cave entrance some 5 by 3 metres widening to approximately 18 by 25 metres at the bottom.
At 186 metres (610 ft), Morgans Pond Hole in Manchester Parish, Jamaica is the second deepest known cave in the island.
Thatchfield Great Cave is a large cave in Saint Ann Parish near the north coast of Jamaica. Because it is considered to be under threat its exact location is not widely publicised.
Oryzomys antillarum, also known as the Jamaican rice rat, is an extinct rodent of Jamaica. A member of the genus Oryzomys within the family Cricetidae, it is similar to O. couesi of mainland Central America, from where it may have dispersed to its island during the last glacial period. O. antillarum is common in subfossil cave faunas and is also known from three specimens collected live in the 19th century. Some historical records of Jamaican rats may pertain to it. The species probably became extinct late in the 19th century, perhaps due to the introduction of the small Indian mongoose, competition with introduced rodents such as the brown rat, and habitat destruction.
The One-Eye River is a river in the parishes of Manchester and St Elizabeth in Jamaica. It is a tributary of the Black River.
Xtabi is a cove on the cliffs of Negril, in Westmoreland, Jamaica. It consists of a labyrinth of caves and passageways carved from solid rock over millennia of ocean water striking it.
The Rotten Gut River is a short river in the parish of Manchester, Jamaica and a tributary of the One Eye River.
Agnes Milowka was an Australian technical diver, underwater photographer, author, maritime archaeologist and cave explorer. She gained international recognition for penetrating deeper than previous explorers into cave systems across Australia and Florida, and as a public speaker and author on the subjects of diving and maritime archaeology. She died aged 29 while diving in a confined space.
The Portland Bight Protected Area (PBPA) was created by the Jamaican government in 1999 to protect a large marine and terrestrial area on the island of Jamaica located southwest of Kingston. Nearby cays such as Little Goat Island are included. It is the largest protected area in Jamaica and comprises 724 square miles (1,880 km2). Although the first priority in forming the protected area was to protect the coral reefs, it also serves to protect vulnerable and endemic species. The PBPA includes 32 square miles (83 km2) of wetlands on the island, and coastlines of mangroves, as well as sea-grass beds that serve as a nursery for fish and shellfish breeding. The Caribbean Coastal Area Management Foundation (C-CAM) has been charged with managing zones within the protected area.
The Jamaican greater funnel-eared bat is a species of funnel-eared bat found in Jamaica. It was first described as the subspecies Natalus major jamaicensis, later as a subspecies of Natalus stramineus, and more recently as its own species. It is of a similar appearance to many species of the genus Natalus. It lives solely in St. Clair Cave in Jamaica and feeds on insects.
Cave diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. The equipment used varies depending on the circumstances, and ranges from breath hold to surface supplied, but almost all cave diving is done using scuba equipment, often in specialised configurations with redundancies such as sidemount or backmounted twinset. Recreational cave diving is generally considered to be a type of technical diving due to the lack of a free surface during large parts of the dive, and often involves planned decompression stops. A distinction is made by recreational diver training agencies between cave diving and cavern diving, where cavern diving is deemed to be diving in those parts of a cave where the exit to open water can be seen by natural light. An arbitrary distance limit to the open water surface may also be specified. Despite the risks, water-filled caves attract scuba divers, cavers, and speleologists due to their often unexplored nature, and present divers with a technical diving challenge.
References
- General
- Fincham, A. (1998). Jamaica Underground: The Caves, Sinkholes and Underground Rivers of the Island. Kingston, Jamaica: University Press of the West Indies.
- Inline
