Mona Passage | |
---|---|
Canal de la Mona | |
Coordinates | 18°30′N67°53′W / 18.500°N 67.883°W |
Basin countries | Puerto Rico Dominican Republic |
The Mona Passage (Spanish : Canal de la Mona) is a strait that separates the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The Mona Passage connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and is an important shipping route between the Atlantic and the Panama Canal.
The Mona Passage is 80 miles (130 kilometers) long. It is fraught with variable tidal currents created by large islands on either side of it, and by sand banks that extend out from both coasts.
There are three small islands in the Mona Passage:
The Passage was the site of a devastating earthquake and resulting tsunami that hit western Puerto Rico in 1918. [1] It is the site of frequent small earthquakes. The passage is underlain by a seismically active rift zone that overprints an older partly eroded tilted-block structure. [1] Desecheo Island sits on the Desecheo ridge, a narrow east–west ridge that extends west from the northwest corner of Puerto Rico. The ridge forms the southern boundary of the 13,123 ft (4,000 m) deep Mona Canyon which extends toward the north to the strike slip fault zones which bound Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. The east face of the rift has a sharp relief of 3km and is controlled by the N - S trending Mona Rift Fault. The epicenter of the 1918 earthquake was located along the east or southeast edge of the Mona Rift. [2]
The Mona Passage connects the Atlantic Ocean waters and Caribbean Sea waters, above a sill depth of 1,312 to 1,640 feet (400 to 500 meters). The sill runs along a northwest to the southeast direction between Cabo Engaño (DR) in the west and the Cabo Rojo Shelf (PR) in the east margin of the Mona Passage. The vertical profile of the low-frequency (periods longer than 2 days) mean meridional water transport is characterized by a two-layer structure. The upper layer lies above a depth of 984 feet (300 meters), with the upper water masses, the Caribbean Surface Water, Subtropical Underwater and Sargasso Sea Water entering the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. Below this layer, the Tropical Central Water exits toward the Atlantic Ocean. The mean value for the meridional (North-South) transport for a sampled year was -1.85 ± 0.25 sverdrup (Sv) into the Caribbean Sea. [3]
The barotropic tide (surface tide) propagates from northeast to southwest along Mona Passage. The "principal lunar semi-diurnal" constituent, also known as the M2 (or M2) accounts for 52.35% of the total variance observed in the ocean currents and the semidiurnal current ellipses, with a clockwise rotation, are roughly aligned in a north–south direction. [4]
Semidiurnal tidal currents impinging on a submarine ridge known as El Pichincho can force the generation of an internal tide with a wave height of 131 feet (40 meters). [5] Underwater glider observations reveal wave damping as the internal tide propagates south along the Mona Passage towards the open Caribbean Sea. [6] [7] [8]
Internal tides at El Pichincho can elevate the turbulent vertical diffusivity values (or Eddy diffusion), and with a reduction of the Richardson number at the base of the pycnocline. The development of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability during the breaking of the internal tide can explain the formation of high diffusivity patches that generate a vertical flux of nitrate (NO3−) into the photic zone and can sustain new production locally. [9]
Higher values of primary productivity were observed near the wave trough, than those observed during periods of maximum solar irradiance at noon.
Images from the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and International Space Station (ISS) photography show the sea-surface manifestation of packets of internal solitons (or nonlinear internal waves) generated at Banco Engaño, located at the northwest margin of the Mona Passage. [10] [11]
The packets propagate either into the Caribbean Sea or the Atlantic Ocean depending on the direction of the currents that forced their generation. [12]
Surface tides, internal tides, internal solitons, inertial currents and the low frequency water mass transport between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea make the Mona Passage a very dynamic environment.
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles starting with Cuba, to the east by the Lesser Antilles, and to the south by the northern coast of South America. The Gulf of Mexico lies to the northwest.
The geography of Puerto Rico consists of an archipelago located between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, east of the Dominican Republic or Hispaniola, west of the Virgin Islands and north of Venezuela. The main island of Puerto Rico is the smallest and most eastern of the Greater Antilles. With an area of 8,710 square kilometres (3,360 sq mi), it is the third largest island in the United States and the 82nd largest island in the world. Various smaller islands and cays, including Vieques, Culebra, Mona, Desecheo, and Caja de Muertos comprise the remainder of the archipelago with only Culebra and Vieques being inhabited year-round. Mona is uninhabited through large parts of the year except for employees of the Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources.
Mayagüez is a city and the eighth-largest municipality in Puerto Rico. It was founded as Pueblo deNuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Mayagüez(Township of Our Lady of Candelaria), and is also known as La Sultana del Oeste, Ciudad de las Aguas Puras, or Ciudad del Mangó. On April 6, 1894, the Spanish Crown granted it the formal title of Excelente Ciudad de Mayagüez. Mayagüez is located in the center of the western coast on the island of Puerto Rico. It has a population of 73,077 in the city proper, and it is a principal city of the Mayagüez Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Mayagüez–San Germán–Cabo Rojo Combined Statistical Area.
Mona is the third-largest island of the Puerto Rican archipelago, after the main island of Puerto Rico and Vieques. It is the largest of three islands in the Mona Passage, a strait between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, the others being Monito Island and Desecheo Island. It measures about 7 miles by 4 miles, and lies 41 mi (66 km) west of Puerto Rico, of which it is administratively a part. It is one of two islands that make up the Isla de Mona e Islote Monito barrio in the municipality of Mayagüez.
A seiche is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors, caves and seas. The key requirement for formation of a seiche is that the body of water be at least partially bounded, allowing the formation of the standing wave.
The Windward Passage is a strait in the Caribbean Sea, between the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. The strait specifically lies between the easternmost region of Cuba and the northwest of Haiti. 80 km (50 mi) wide, the Windward Passage has a threshold depth of 1,700 m (5,600 ft).
The Puerto Rican dry forests are a tropical dry forest ecoregion located in southwestern and eastern Puerto Rico and on the offshore islands. They cover an area of 1,300 km2 (500 sq mi). These forests grow in areas receiving less than 1,000 mm (39 in) of rain annually. Many of the trees are deciduous, losing their leaves during the dry season which normally lasts from December to April.
The Puerto Rico Trench is located on the boundary between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The oceanic trench, the deepest in the Atlantic, is associated with a complex transition between the Lesser Antilles subduction zone to the south and the major transform fault zone or plate boundary, which extends west between Cuba and Hispaniola through the Cayman Trough to the coast of Central America.
The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the northern coast of South America.
Desecheo is a small uninhabited island of the archipelago of Puerto Rico located in the northeast of the Mona Passage; 13 mi (21 km) from Rincón on the west coast of the main island of Puerto Rico and 31 mi (50 km) northeast of Mona Island. It has a land area of 0.589 sq mi. Politically, the island is administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Desecheo National Wildlife Refuge, but part of Barrio Sabanetas of Mayaguez.
USCGC Escanaba (WMEC-907) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter based in Portsmouth, Virginia. Her keel was laid on April 1, 1983, at Robert Derecktor Shipyard Incorporated, Middletown, Rhode Island. She was launched February 6, 1985 and is named for her predecessor, USCGC Escanaba (WPG-77) which sank during World War Two, and was named for the Escanaba River and Escanaba, Michigan. Escanaba (WMEC-907) was formally commissioned August 29, 1987 in Grand Haven, Michigan, the home port of her predecessor.
The 1918 San Fermín earthquake, also known as the Puerto Rico earthquake of 1918, struck the island of Puerto Rico at 10:14:42 local time on October 11. The earthquake measured 7.1 on the moment magnitude scale and IX (Violent) on the Mercalli intensity scale. The mainshock epicenter occurred off the northwestern coast of the island, somewhere along the Puerto Rico Trench.
Internal tides are generated as the surface tides move stratified water up and down sloping topography, which produces a wave in the ocean interior. So internal tides are internal waves at a tidal frequency. The other major source of internal waves is the wind which produces internal waves near the inertial frequency. When a small water parcel is displaced from its equilibrium position, it will return either downwards due to gravity or upwards due to buoyancy. The water parcel will overshoot its original equilibrium position and this disturbance will set off an internal gravity wave. Munk (1981) notes, "Gravity waves in the ocean's interior are as common as waves at the sea surface-perhaps even more so, for no one has ever reported an interior calm."
Isla de Mona e Islote Monito is an island-barrio of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. The US census of 2000 reports six housing units, but a population of zero. The barrio is made up of the islands of Mona and Monito. In 2010, there was a population of 5. This is the largest ward of Mayagüez by area. The total land area of both islands in the barrio is about 56.93 km2, and it comprises 28.3 percent of the total land area of the municipality of Mayagüez. Desecheo Island, 49 km to the northeast, is part of Sabanetas barrio. The Mona Island Lighthouse is located in the ward. Isla de Mona e Islote Monito is surrounded by the Mona Passage.
Porta del Sol, or simply West Region, is a tourism region in western Puerto Rico. Porta del Sol was the first tourism region to be established by the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. It consists of 17 municipalities in the western area: Quebradillas, Isabela, San Sebastián, Moca, Aguadilla, Aguada, Rincón, Añasco, Mayagüez, Las Marías, Maricao, Hormigueros, San Germán, Sabana Grande, Guánica, Lajas and Cabo Rojo.
Sabanetas is a barrio in the municipality of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. Its population in 2010 was 4,005.
USCGC Heriberto Hernandez is the 14th Sentinel-class cutter delivered to the United States Coast Guard. Like five of her sister ships, her initial assignment will see her based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Mona Canyon is an 87-mile long (140 km) submarine canyon located in the Mona Passage, between the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, with steep walls measuring between 1.25 and 2.17 miles (2-3.5 km) in height from bottom to top. The Mona Canyon stretches from the Desecheo Island platform, specifically the Desecheo Rift, in the south to the Puerto Rico Trench, which contains some of the deepest points in the Atlantic Ocean, in the north. The canyon is also particularly associated with earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis, with the 1918 Puerto Rico earthquake having its epicenter in the Mona Rift along the submarine canyon.
Mona and Monito Islands Nature Reserve consists of two islands, Mona and Monito, in the Mona Passage off western Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Mona and Monito Islands Nature Reserve encompasses both land and marine area, and with an area of 38,893 acres it is the largest protected natural area in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Much like the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the Mona and Monito Islands reserve represents a living laboratory for archaeological, biological, geological, oceanographical and wildlife management research.
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