Everything about Yucat N Peninsula totally explained
The
Yucatán Peninsula, in Southeastern
Mexico, separates the
Caribbean Sea from the
Gulf of Mexico. The
peninsula lies east of the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a northwestern
geographic partition separating the region of
Central America from the rest of
North America.
The peninsula comprises the
Mexican states of
Yucatán,
Campeche, and
Quintana Roo; the northern part of the nation of
Belize; and
Guatemala's northern
department of
El Petén. Mexican states situated on the isthmus to the west of the peninsula include
Chiapas and
Tabasco and is directly within the
hurricane belt.
Geology
The peninsula is the surface exposed portion of the larger Yucatan Platform, all of which is composed of carbonate and soluble rocks, being mostly
limestone although dolomite and evaporites are also present at various depths. The whole of the Yucatan peninsula is a
karst landscape. Sinkholes, locally called
cenotes are widespread in the northern lowlands.
According to the
Alvarez hypothesis, the Yucatán Peninsula was the site of an ancient
asteroid impact which is likely to have caused the
mass extinction at the
end of the Cretaceous Period. The crater is centered off the north coast of the modern town of
Chicxulub (see
Chicxulub Crater). The now-famous "Ring of Cenotes" (visible in
NASA imagery) outlines one of the shock-waves from this impact event in the rock of ~65 millions years of age, which lies more than 1 km below the modern ground surface, with the rock above the impact strata all being younger in age. The mechanism by which this deeply buried impact crater is reflected by the ring of
cenotes at the surface remains to be explained.
Water Resources
The
cenotes were (and are) the main water source for many ancient and contemporary
Maya people, as there are no rivers and very few lakes on the peninsula.
Vegetation
Short and tall dry tropical jungles are the predominant natural vegetation types of the Yucatan peninsula.
The boundaries between northern Guatemala (
El Petén), Mexico (
Campeche and
Quintana Roo), and western
Belize are still occupied by the largest continuous tracts of tropical
rainforest in
Central America. However, these forests are suffering extensive
deforestation.
Etymology
There is a popular myth that the name Yucatán comes from the
Yucatec Maya phrase for "listen how they speak," or "I don't understand your words" -- supposedly said by contact period Maya when the first
Spanish explorers asked what the area was called. The proper derivation of the word Yucatan is widely debated.
People
The Yucatán Peninsula comprises a significant proportion of the ancient Maya Lowlands (although the Maya culture extended south of the Yucatan peninsula, through present Guatemala and into Honduras and highland Chiapas). There are many
Maya archaeological sites throughout the peninsula; some of the better-known are
Chichen Itza,
Tikal,
Tulum and
Uxmal.
(External Link
),
(External Link) Indigenous Maya and
Mestizos of partial Maya descent still make up a sizable portion of the region's population, and
Mayan languages are still widely spoken there.
In the late historic and early modern eras, the Yucatan Peninsula was largely a cattle ranching, logging,
chicle and
henequen production area. Since the 1970s (and the fall of the world henequen and chicle markets due to the advent of synthetic substitutes), the Yucatán Peninsula has reoriented its economy towards tourism, especially in the Mexican state of
Quintana Roo. Once a small fishing village,
Cancún in the northeast of the peninsula has grown into a thriving city. The
Riviera Maya, which stretches along the east coast of the peninsula between
Cancún and
Tulum, currently has more than 50,000 beds and is visited by many thousands of tourists every year.
Climate
Like much of the
Caribbean, the peninsula lies within the Atlantic Hurricane Belt with its almost uniformly flat terrain it's vulnerable to these large storms coming from the east. The
2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season was a particularly bad season for
Mexico's tourism industry, with two forceful category 5 storms hitting,
Hurricane Emily and
Hurricane Wilma. The
2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season was a typical year which left the Yucatán untouched, but in the 2007 Atlantic Hurricane season Yucatan was hit by the
Hurricane Dean (also a category 5 storm), nevertheless Dean left little damage on the peninsula despite heavy localized flooding.
Strong storms called nortes can quickly descend on the Yucatán Peninsula any time of year. Although these storms pummel the area with heavy rains and high winds, they tend to be short-lived, clearing after about an hour. The average percentage of days with rain per month ranges from a monthly low of 7% in April to a high of 25% in October. Breezes can have a cooling effect,
humidity is generally high, particularly in the remaining rainforest areas.
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