American Mediterranean

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The American Mediterranean:
in the northwest the Gulf of Mexico ,
in the southeast the Caribbean Sea . Chains of islands form the border to the open Atlantic.

The American Mediterranean Sea is a western tributary of the Atlantic Ocean . It consists of the Caribbean Sea (southeastern part) and the Gulf of Mexico (northwestern part). The sea is part of the Central America region . The deepest point is in the Kaiman Trench , it measures 7680 m.

geography

The sea area has an area of ​​almost 4.4 million km² (Caribbean Sea 2.75 million km² + Gulf of Mexico 1.6 million km²).

For naming

The designation as English American Mediterranean [ Sea ] refers to the location as the Mediterranean Sea between the two continents North and South America (concept "both America"). If America were to be understood as a contiguous continent, however, there would be no intercontinental Mediterranean in the sense of the term, but an ordinary marginal sea of the Atlantic.

The name was based on the "European" Mediterranean . It has no particular hydrographic or climatic similarities with it. For this reason, the "oceanographically more correct" designation Central American Sea 'Central American Sea' was proposed . However, it plays a similar historical and cultural role, especially for North America (old autochthonous high cultures, the end of the Romansh-speaking colonization, favorable tourist locations). That is why the expression is quite common. There are also parallels in terms of geological history: both sea areas are older than the free Atlantic and were adjacent to each other in Pangea before the Mid-Atlantic Rift Valley opened .

Limitation

The mainland borders form the south coast of the United States to the north, the east coast of Central America to the west and the north coast of South America to the south . Florida and the arch of the Antilles form the border in the east, to the free North Atlantic .

Straits of the Sea

The island world of the Caribbean . Four straits of the sea are registered: Florida Strait, Windward Passage, Mona Passage, Anegada Passage.

Connections to the open Atlantic (selection):

The Yucatán Strait connects the Gulf of Mexico with the Caribbean.

There is a connection to the Pacific via the Panama Canal .

Bays

Bay in the Gulf of Mexico:

Gulf of the Caribbean Sea:

Lake Maracaibo , an inland sea of the American Mediterranean, connects to the Gulf of Venezuela .

Archipelagos and islands

Most of the islands in the American Mediterranean are part of the West Indies . The most important archipelagos are the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles .

Greater Antilles (the four largest islands in the region):

Lesser Antilles:

There are also a number of islands off the mainland coast, such as the Florida Keys , Cozumel off the Yucatan, or the Corn Islands .

The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands , although counted as part of the Caribbean as a region, lie outside the sea according to hydrographic aspects (not part of the Antilles); Opinions on Barbados are contradicting, including Trinidad and Tobago (all of the Lesser Antilles).

Seabed

Right in the picture: the western part of the Cayman Trench

There are thresholds , deep-sea basins and a deep-sea channel on the sea ​​floor . The deep-sea basins include:

  • Mexican basin in the center of the Gulf of Mexico, maximum depth: 4375 m
  • Yucatan Basin in the northwest of the Caribbean Sea, maximum depth: 4901 m
  • Caribbean basin in the southeast of the Caribbean Sea, maximum depth: 5649 m

The deep sea channel is the up to 7680 m deep caiman rift in the northwest of the Caribbean Sea. It runs just south of the Cayman Islands , roughly from an area between Cuba and Jamaica towards the Gulf of Honduras.

countries

States delimiting or lying within the American Mediterranean and areas dependent on other states are (clockwise):

For the Bahamas (USA) and Turks and Caicos Islands (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) see note on the islands .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ American Mediterranean . In: Spectrum: Lexicon of Geosciences.
  2. ↑ a b Caribbean Sea . In: Encyclopaedia Britannica online - there the name "Mediterranean" is called "falsely" ( " erroneously given").
  3. ↑ World Mark D. Spalding, Corinna Ravilious, Edmund Peter Green: Atlas of Coral Reefs. University of California Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-520-23255-6 , II The Atlantic and eastern Pacific , p. 92, col. 1 ( limited preview in Google Book Search; English).
  4. ↑ a b Delimitation according to the International Hydrographic Organization  (IHO): Limit of Oceans and Seas. Special Paper S-32, 1928, 1937, 1953 (drafts 1986, 2004): Gulf of Mexico: at 83rd longitude; Caribbean: train of the three major Antilles islands and on the outer 100-fathom line of the Lesser Antilles; For details see the articles of the two seas.