Isla de MonaThis airplane window view caught the uninhabited Isla de Mona, which sits in the Mona Ch

Isla de MonaThis airplane window view caught the uninhabited Isla de Mona, which sits in the Mona Channel to the west of Puerto Rico. The Island is a flat-topped plateau surrounded by cliffs that are up to 70 meters high, leading it to be called a meseta in various publications. The island is made of uplifted, Miocene-age limestones and dolostones, remnants of reefs growing in the Caribbean about 10 million years ago. There are several gentle folds in the rocks and a fault cutting through the center of the island, testifying to its history of uplift. Small normal faults along the edge separate this plateau from a smaller nearby chunk of rock known as Isla de Monito. These Caribbean Islands sit between several major faults that have worked over time to push sediments from the floor of the Sea above the waves. The edges of the island are dotted with caves of various sizes that now contain large deposits of phosphorite – basically phosphorus rich material from guano.-JBBImage credit: https://flic.kr/p/nUJBc3References:http://bit.ly/29FaS3ehttp://geology.uprm.edu/Morelock/mongeol.htm -- source link

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