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 south west, to the north by the Greater Antilles starting with Cuba, to the east by the Lesser Antilles, and to the south by the north coast of South America. The Gulf of Mexico is also nearby.
An atoll, sometimes known as a coral atoll, is a ring-shaped coral reef, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical oceans and seas where corals can grow. Most of the approximately 440 atolls in the world are in the Pacific Ocean.
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups.
Farallón de Pájaros, also known as Uracus or Urracas, is a small (2.3 km2) uninhabited volcanic island, the northernmost island in the Northern Mariana Islands chain.
Pillar coral is a hard coral found in the western Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. It is the only species in the monotypic genus Dendrogyra. It is a digitate coral -that is, it resembles fingers or a cluster of cigars, growing up from the sea floor without any secondary branching. It is large and can grow on both flat and sloping surfaces at depths down to 20 m (65 ft). It is one of the few types of hard coral in which the polyps can commonly be seen feeding during the day.
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is a Florida State Park located on Key Largo in Florida. It includes approximately 70 nautical square miles (240 km²) of adjacent Atlantic Ocean waters. The park is approximately 25 miles in length and extends 3 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first underwater park in the United States. The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 14, 1972. The primary attractions of the park are the coral reefs and their associated marine life.
A fringing reef is one of the three main types of coral reef. It is distinguished from the other main types, barrier reefs and atolls, in that it has either an entirely shallow backreef zone (lagoon) or none at all. If a fringing reef grows directly from the shoreline, then the reef flat extends to the beach and there is no backreef. In other cases, fringing reefs may grow hundreds of yards from shore and contain extensive backreef areas within which it contains food and water, examples are Philippines, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, the western coast of Australia, the Caribbean, East Africa, and Red Sea. Charles Darwin believed that fringing reefs are the first kind of reefs to form around a landmass in a long-term reef growth process. The largest fringing coral reef in the world is the Ningaloo Reef, stretching to around 260 km (160 mi) along the coastline of Western Australia.
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836, was published in 1842 as Charles Darwin's first monograph, and set out his theory of the formation of coral reefs and atolls. He conceived of the idea during the voyage of the Beagle while still in South America, before he had seen a coral island, and wrote it out as HMS Beagle crossed the Pacific Ocean, completing his draft by November 1835. At the time there was great scientific interest in the way that coral reefs formed, and Captain Robert FitzRoy's orders from the Admiralty included the investigation of an atoll as an important scientific aim of the voyage. FitzRoy chose to survey the Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean. The results supported Darwin's theory that the various types of coral reefs and atolls could be explained by uplift and subsidence of vast areas of the Earth's crust under the oceans.
The International Coral Reef Society is an international, not-for profit, scientific society dedicated to the conservation of coral reefs through science and understanding. Founded in 1980, the primary objective of ICRS is the improvement of scientific knowledge and understanding of coral reefs, both living and fossil.
Nancy Knowlton is a coral reef biologist and a former Sant Chair for Marine Science at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Thomas Wayland Vaughan was an American geologist and oceanographer. He worked with the United States Geological Survey and United States National Museum, investigating the geology of the West Indies, Panama Canal Zone, and the eastern coast of North America. In 1924 Vaughan became director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and held the post until his retirement in 1936. His research work concentrated on the study of corals and coral reefs, the investigation of larger foraminifera, and oceanography.
Lytechinus williamsi, the jewel urchin, is a sea urchin in the family Toxopneustidae. It occurs on shallow reefs off the coasts of Panama, Belize, the Florida Keys and Jamaica.
The Old Bank Formation is a geologic formation in Bocas del Toro Province, Panama. It preserves coral fossils dating back to the Messinian period.
The Isla Colón Formation is an Early Pleistocene geologic formation in the Bocas del Toro Province of northwestern Panama. It preserves coral fossils. The formation, part of the Bocas del Toro Group, comprises limestones and sandstones deposited in a reefal environment.
The Mount Hope Formation is a geologic formation of the Caribbean mouth of the Panama Canal Zone in Panama. The limestones, mudstones and siltstones preserve bivalve, gastropod and crustacean fossils dating to the Early Pleistocene. The formation is named after Mount Hope Cemetery, the burial ground for black West Indian immigrants who died working on the intercontinental Panama Railroad at the Panama Canal for the American Panamanian Railroad Corporation between 1850 and 1855.
Spur and groove formations are a geomorphic feature of many coral reefs. They are ridges of reef formed by coral "spurs" separated by channels "grooves" which often have sediment or rubble bed. Spur and groove formations vary in their size and distribution worldwide but are a common feature on many forereefs of fringing reefs, barrier reefs, and atolls which are exposed to moderate wave energy. Spur and groove formations are influenced by the incoming surface waves, and the waves induce a circulation pattern of counter rotating circulation cells.
Nora Goreau, born Nora Isabel Arango de Urriola, also known as “Mother of Coral Reef Science” was Panama’s first marine biologist.
An electric reef is an artificial reef made from biorock, being limestone that forms rapidly in seawater on a metal structure from dissolved minerals in the presence of a small electric current. The first reefs of this type were created by Wolf Hilbertz and Thomas J. Goreau in the 1980s. By 2011 there were examples in over 20 countries.
Panama 
