Geography & Geology
Where the island sits, what it is made of, and why one side is rainforest and the other is almost desert.
Question 1 of 10
What is an archipelago?
Puerto Rico is part of an archipelago twice over: it belongs to the Greater Antilles, and it forms its own archipelago with Vieques and Culebra.
Question 2 of 10
Which two bodies of water surround Puerto Rico?
The Atlantic is to the north and the Caribbean to the south. That position is why the island mattered to the Taíno, and later to Spain.
Question 3 of 10
Which islands belong to Puerto Rico’s own archipelago?
Vieques and Culebra sit to the east. Smaller, but not lesser: each has its own communities and its own history.
Question 4 of 10
Which forest is the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest System?
El Yunque takes in between 120 and over 200 inches of rain a year. That is ten to seventeen feet of water falling out of the sky.
Question 5 of 10
Why does one side of the island get over 120 inches of rain and the other about 20?
Clouds hit the north side of the mountains, rise, cool, and drop their water there. Very little is left by the time they cross to the south.
Question 6 of 10
What creates the glow in a bioluminescent bay?
Dinoflagellates are too small to see on their own. Move a paddle through the water and thousands light up at once.
Question 7 of 10
Which bay is the brightest bioluminescent bay in the world?
Mosquito Bay in Vieques. The bays glow because they are protected, warm, and clean, which is exactly what those organisms need.
Question 8 of 10
How did Puerto Rico first form?
The island did not arrive. It rose. Volcanoes erupted along the edge of the Caribbean Plate, and those layers were pushed up over millions of years.
Question 9 of 10
What is karst?
Karst country is caves, sinkholes, rounded hills, and rivers that run underground. The Río Camuy runs through one of the largest cave systems in the world.
Question 10 of 10
How did Puerto Rico’s geology make the Arecibo Observatory possible?
The land had already done the hardest part of the engineering. Scientists found the bowl and built the dish inside it.
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This is one week of eight.
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