The Natural History of The Bahamas

The Natural History of The Bahamas
Author: Dave Currie
Publisher: Comstock Publishing Associates
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 150173802X

The Natural History of the Bahamas fills a void in the literature on the avian and terrestrial species found there and is an overall excellent guide.— Sandra D. Buckner, Past President of the Bahamas National Trust Take this book with you on your next trip to the Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos Islands or keep it close to hand in your travel library. The Natural History of the Bahamas offers the most comprehensive coverage of the terrestrial and coastal flora and fauna on the islands of the Bahamas archipelago, as well as of the region's natural history and ecology. Readers will gain an appreciation for the importance of conserving the diverse lifeforms on these special Caribbean islands. A detailed introduction to the history, geology, and climate of the islands. Beautifully illustrated, with more than seven hundred color photographs showcasing the diverse plants, fungi, and animals found on the Bahamian Archipelago.

Coastal Karst Landforms

Coastal Karst Landforms
Author: Michael J. Lace
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2013-06-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9400750161

Carbonate rock coasts are found world-wide, from continental shorelines of the Adriatic Sea of Europe to the Yucatan Peninsula of North America, and on tropical islands from Rodrigues Island in the Indian Ocean, to the Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean, to the Bahama Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Such coasts are well known for their unusual and distinctive karst landforms. Karst processes, particularly those associated with coastal landforms, are proving to be surprisingly unique and complex. This volume presents a comprehensive overview of the processes associated with coastal karst development comparing examples from a broad geographical and geomorphological range of island and continental shoreline/paleoshoreline settings, including a review of pseudokarst processes that can compete with and overprint dynamic coastal karst landscapes. As effective management of hydrologic resources grows more complex, coastal caves and karst represent fundamental components in associated coastal aquifers, which in the rock record can also form significant petroleum reservoirs. Audience By providing a clearer understanding of the geological, biological, archaeological and cultural value of coastal caves and karst resources, this volume offers a critical tool to coastal researchers and geoscientists in related fields and to coastal land managers as it illustrates the diversity of coastal karst landforms, the unique processes which formed them, the diversity of resources they harbor and their relationship to coastal zone preservation strategies and the development of sustainable management approaches.

Links Between Geological Processes, Microbial Activities & Evolution of Life

Links Between Geological Processes, Microbial Activities & Evolution of Life
Author: Yildirim Dilek
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2008-07-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1402083068

Microbial systems in extreme environments and in the deep biosphere may be analogous to potential life on other planetary bodies and hence may be used to investigate the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. This book examines the mode and nature of links between geological processes and microbial activities and their significance for the origin and evolution of life on the Earth and possibly on other planets. This is a truly interdisciplinary science with societal relevance.

The Peoples of the Caribbean

The Peoples of the Caribbean
Author: Nicholas J. Saunders
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2005-12-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1576077020

A true "first," this encyclopedia is the only comprehensive guide ever published on the archaeology and traditional culture of the Caribbean. In The Peoples of the Caribbean, archaeologist Nicholas J. Saunders assembles for the first time a comprehensive sourcebook on the archaeology, folklore, and mythology of the entire region, charting a story 7,000 years in the making. Drawing on decades of study in the Caribbean and South America, Saunders explores landmark archaeological sites, such as Caguana in Puerto Rico, with its ceremonial architecture and ballcourts, and plantation sites, such as Jamaica's Drax Hall. The author dives into the underwater archaeology of Spanish treasure galleons and untangles stories of cannibalism, zombies, and hallucinogenic snuffing rituals. He examines the impact of key Europeans, such as Christopher Columbus, and introduces readers to the native people, such as the Arawak, who welcomed them. Bringing the story up-to-date, Saunders chronicles the struggle of the indigenous people, from the Caribs of Dominica to the Taíno of the Dominican Republic, trying to reclaim and revitalize their historical cultural identity.

Public Interiority

Public Interiority
Author: Liz Teston
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2024-09-30
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1040119735

Public Interiority reconsiders the limits of the interior and its perceived spaces, exploring the notion that interior conditions can exist within an exterior environment, and therefore challenging the very foundations of the interior architecture field. Public Interiority contains eight chapters and 16 visual essays that document the historical, material, and social conditions in contemporary cities, reconsidering the limits of the interior, resiliency in design, spatial perception, and territories within curated urban exteriors. Topics include the supergraphics of Black Lives Matter protests, privacy and US Supreme Court landmark cases, Instagram as a quasi-public interior, domestic simulation in Victorian curative environments, the micro-urban commons of public transit, and the timely study uncovering Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s approach to "urban interior designing," among many others. Including scholarly and visual essays by experts from a range of disciplines, including architecture, interior architecture, landscape architecture, exhibition design, craft and the visual arts, and design history and theory, this volume will be a helpful resource for all those upper-level students and scholars working in these related fields.

The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean

The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean
Author: Sharika D. Crawford
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2020-10
Genre: History
ISBN:

Illuminating the entangled histories of the people and commodities that circulated across the Atlantic, Sharika D. Crawford assesses the Caribbean as a waterscape where imperial and national governments vied to control the profitability of the sea. Crawford places the green and hawksbill sea turtles and the Caymanian turtlemen who hunted them at the center of this waterscape. The story of the humble turtle and its hunter, she argues, came to play a significant role in shaping the maritime boundaries of the modern Caribbean. Crawford describes the colonial Caribbean as an Atlantic commons where all could compete to control the region's diverse peoples, lands, and waters and exploit the region's raw materials. Focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Crawford traces and connects the expansion and decline of turtle hunting to matters of race, labor, political and economic change, and the natural environment. Like the turtles they chased, the boundary-flouting laborers exposed the limits of states' sovereignty for a time but ultimately they lost their livelihoods, having played a significant role in legislation delimiting maritime boundaries. Still, former turtlemen have found their deep knowledge valued today in efforts to protect sea turtles and recover the region's ecological sustainability.

Conservation of Caribbean Island Herpetofaunas Volume 2: Regional Accounts of the West Indies

Conservation of Caribbean Island Herpetofaunas Volume 2: Regional Accounts of the West Indies
Author: Adrian Hailey
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2011-04-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9004194096

Most of the islands of the Caribbean have long histories of herpetological exploration and discovery, and even longer histories of human-mediated environmental degradation. Collectively, they constitute a major biodiversity hotspot – a region rich in endemic species that are threatened with extinction. This two-volume series documents the existing status of herpetofaunas (including sea turtles) of the Caribbean, and highlights conservation needs and efforts. Previous contributions to West Indian herpetology have focused on taxonomy, ecology and evolution, particularly of lizards. This series provides a unique and timely review of the status and conservation of all groups of amphibians and reptiles in the region. This volume provides regional accounts of the islands of the West Indies biogeographic region: Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda; The Bahamas; Barbados; The British Virgin Islands; The Cayman Islands; The Commonwealth of Dominica; The Dominican Republic; The Dutch Windward Islands of St. Eustatius, Saba and St. Maarten; The French West Indies; Grenada; The Grenadines; Jamaica; Martinique; Puerto Rico; St. Vincent; The Turks and Caicos Islands; The United States Virgin Islands. Each account discusses the conservation problems of the herpetofauna and their solutions, in a region made up of islands of diverse ecology and political systems. The book will be useful to biologists and conservationists working in or visiting the Caribbean, and internationally as a summary of the current situation in the region.

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology
Author: William F. Keegan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 617
Release: 2013-03-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195392302

This volume brings together examples of the best research to address the complexity of the Caribbean past.