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Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs pp 85–93Cite as

Bahamas

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Part of the Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series book series (EESS)

Definition

“Bahamas” denotes the Bahamas Archipelago of 700 islands and approximately 2,400 cays and rocks that stretches from 27°36′ to 19°52′N latitude and from 79°05′ to 68°42′W longitude, a distance of about 1,300 km (Figure 1). That includes the Caicos and Turks Islands as well as Mouchoir, Silver, and Navidad Banks that are geographically, geologically, and ecologically part of the Bahamas, although separate entities politically. The land area of the Bahamas Commonwealth is 13,900 km2, home to some 306,000 people on 30 of the islands and host to 4.6 million tourists annually (Government of the Bahamas). By far the largest part of the Bahamas, some 155,000 km2, lies beneath the sea (Newell, 1955). Of interest here are the vast shallow (<20 m) banks, the Great Bahama Bank (GBB), the Little Bahama Bank (LBB), and the smaller banks extending far to the southeast, encompassing about 125,000 km2 (Bergman et al., 2010). The shallow banks from Caicos to Navidad Bank add another 10,200 km

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Bahamas. Figure 1
Bahamas. Figure 2
Bahamas. Figure 3
Bahamas. Figure 4
Bahamas. Figure 5
Bahamas. Figure 6

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  1. Department of Geology, University of Kansas, 1475 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 120, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Paul Enos

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  1. James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

    David Hopley

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Enos, P. (2011). Bahamas. In: Hopley, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2639-2_42

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