Sands of Mexico EarthCache
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A major attraction throughout the Riviera Maya are coastal and reef aquatic activities dependent on the coastal water and the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (also known as the Belize Barrier Reef) which begins near Cancun and continues along the whole length of the Riviera Maya continuing southward to Guatemala. This barrier reef system is the second longest in the world. The Caribbean coastline is a series of crescent shaped white sand beaches interrupted every 1 – 10 km by rocky headlands and inlets, called caletas, through which groundwater discharges into the coastal water. Large sections of the extensive mangrove swamps that lie behind the beaches and headlands are included in the areas scheduled for tourism development. Coral bleaching happens when coral polyps, the animals that build corals, (science of biology) shed the algae (zooxanthellae) that give them their color, and which are necessary for their survival. The coral is then white in appearance. Coral scientists are not sure what causes coral bleaching, but warming water is the most likely culprit. Corals in the Caribbean have bleached when sea surface temperatures rose and were higher than the mean sea surface temperature for as little as one month. These reefs are important as shelter and feeding grounds for a variety of fish species. When there is a massive die-off of coral, the bleached coral is colonized by algae, the reef becomes populated by only herbivorous fish, and the reef may never recover. Sand is usually made up of fine rock particles and is a naturally occurring, finely divided rock, comprising particles or granules ranging in size from 0.0625 (or 1/16 mm) to 2 millimeters. An individual particle in this range size is termed a sand grain. The next smaller size class in geology is silt while next larger size class above sand is gravel. The composition of sand varies according to local rock sources and conditions. The bright white sands found in tropical and subtropical coastal settings are ground-up limestone also known as coral sand. Sand is composed of particles originating in tropical and sub-tropical marine environments from bioerosion of limestone skeletal material of marine organisms. One example of this process is that of parrot fishes which bite off pieces of coral, digest the living tissue, and excrete the inorganic component as silt and sand. However, the term "coral" in coral sand is used loosely in this sense to mean limestone of recent biological origin; corals are not the dominant contributors of sand particles to most such deposits. Rather, remnant skeletal fragments of foraminifera, calcareous algae, mollusks, and crustaceans can predominate. Because it is composed of limestone, coral sand is acid-soluble. Along this beach, you will see evidence of the limestone sand, some fine silty, while other areas are much more coarse or gravelly in grain. To log this cache please fulfill the following requirements to prove you were there: 1. Tell us which resort you stayed at? 2. Activity: Choose a piece of limestone from the beach, measure the diameter and weigh it. Describe if it is solid , smooth, porous, and how fragile it is. Also, fill & weigh a small container of sand, describing the size of the container and whether the particles are fine, medium, or coarse in size. This can be an approximation. 3. Write the year in the sand, taking a picture holding your GPS with the reef behind you - however, this is optional.
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