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Colombia underwater country

Now that I'm back I'm flying to dive, but in Colombia





We Colombians have the privilege of having two oceans (Pacific and Caribbean Sea), this allows us to have a variety of environments, they are two beautiful but at the same time different places, let's see why...


THE COLOMBIAN PACIFIC


Colombia exercises sovereignty over the waters of the Pacific Ocean in two zones: the territorial sea, an area of ​​approximately 29,000 km2 that extends the first 12 miles from the coastline and includes the column of air, water, soil and subsoil. marine and the zone of exclusive economic use, which extends up to 200 miles from the territorial sea and where, by international treaties, the air column is excluded. The exclusive economic use zone limits to the south with Ecuador, to the west with international waters of the Pacific, to the north with Panama and Costa Rica and to the east with the coastal coastline, forming an approximate perimeter of 3,200 km —including the 1,300 km of coastline. —. This perimeter encloses an approximate surface area of ​​339,500 km2 and if we take into account that the average depth of the Pacific in the Colombian area is 3,125 m, the volume of marine waters that the country has for its exclusive use is 1,060,000 km3.

The coastline in the northern part of the Colombian Pacific, which goes from the border with Panama to Cabo Corrientes, is made up of cliffs that are part of the western margin of the Baudó mountain range. The southern part, from Cape Corrientes to the border with Ecuador, is made up mostly of alluvial plains, although some rocky substrates are also observed near Tumaco, the bays of Buenaventura and Málaga. The island of Gorgona and the inlet of Utría have small white sand beaches produced by the erosion of corals, while the seabed and the rest of the beaches of the Colombian Pacific are made up of 95% of muddy sediments of terrigenous origin contributed by rivers; the remaining 5% is produced by coastal erosion.



The waters of the Colombian Pacific are less salty than those of the Caribbean, due to the influence of a large number of short, but high-flow rivers that flow along the coast. The water masses that occur in the area are of five types: the eastern tropical equatorial surface, which ranges from 0 to 45 m, has a salinity of 31.5 to 32.5 parts per thousand (ppm) and a temperature of 27.4 to 26.5°C; the subtropical and tropical equatorial subsurface, which ranges from 50 to 200 m, has a salinity of 35 ppm and a temperature of 26.5 to 16 °C; an otherocline thermal transition layer that moves influenced by the subsurface current and moves parallel to the warm equatorial current, between 150 and 300 m; that of the waters of the equatorial Pacific, between 200 and 1,000 m, whose salinity is 34.6 to 35 ppm and the temperature is 16 to 4 °C; The behavior of this mass, formed by subarctic waters, is very uniform; finally, a mass of deep waters from the Antarctic, ranging from 1,000 m onwards; Its salinity is 35 ppm and the temperature is 4 to 1 °C. In much of the North Pacific, a strong upwelling of deep waters occurs, especially from May to December, with an average temperature of 20.5 °C and salinity of 33.2 ppm; In the months of January to April this outcrop moves out of the Panama Inlet and lowers the water level in the coastal part of Colombia.



THE COLOMBIAN CARIBBEAN


Colombia exercises sovereignty over the waters of the Caribbean Sea in two zones: the territorial sea, an area of ​​approximately 39,100 km2, which extends the first 12 miles - 22 km - from the coastline and includes the column of air, water , the marine soil and subsoil and the zone of exclusive economic use, which extends up to 200 miles from the limit of the territorial sea and where, by international treaties, the air column is excluded. This area, which borders to the south with Panama and Costa Rica, to the west with Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, to the north with Haiti, Jamaica and Puerto Rico and to the east with the sister republic of Venezuela, has an approximate perimeter of 4,928 km —including the 1,760 km of coastline—and an approximate surface area of ​​589,000 km2. The average depth of the Colombian area is 2,750 m, which means that the volume of marine waters for the exclusive use of the country is 1,619,500 km3.


The continental shelf that delineates the entire coastal area from Castilletes in La Guajira to Cape Tiburón, is extremely wide at both ends and very thin in front of Punta Aguja and Cape San Agustín in the department of Magdalena. After the platform there is a very steep slope, called the Caribana slope, which goes from 300 m to 3,000 m and is the place where the Magdalena Fan plain and the Colombian Plain begin, which reach up to 4,000 m deep. ; The deepest area is located in front of the coast between Urabá and Puerto Bolívar, at the height of the land borders with Nicaragua and Honduras; It is called the Hess Escarpment and its depth ranges from 5,500 to 6,500 m.


In front of the continental waters of Nicaragua there are several outstanding formations, such as the atolls, banks and mountain ranges of the Bolívar complex; composed—in a northeast-southwest direction, parallel to the Nicaraguan platform—of the great Chibcha Basin that includes the Bolívar mountain range, the banks of Turmequé, Panzenu, Roncador, Quitasueño, Serrana, Serranilla, Alicia and Nuevo; the archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia and a large number of keys. The submerged mountains of Quimbaya, Zipa, Sue, Calima and several depressions such as those of Cunas and Providencia also stand out.





Both the temperature and the salinity of this large marine mass present seasonal and spatial variations: in February the salinity on the surface reaches 36 ppm (ppm=parts per million) and the temperature 26 °C and in August the salinity drops to 35 ppm and the temperature rises to 28 °C. Five different types of water have been detected: superficial waters ranging from the surface to 50 m, with an average temperature of 27 °C and salinity of 35.5 ppm; the intermediate subsurface, between 70 and 100 m, with a temperature of 23.5 °C and salinity of 37.0 ppm; the intermediate ones, which are between 400 and 600 m, with an average temperature of 15°C and salinity of 34.5 ppm; the intermediate subantarctic, between 700 and 800 m, with an average temperature of 10 °C and salinity of 35.3 ppm and the deep North Atlantic, which are below 1,000 m, with a temperature of 4 °C and salinity of 35 ppm.



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