CIA STARGATE release
CIA-RDP96-00792R000700210001-7
Opens with: Rat Cay blue hole
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2 pages, machine transcribed from the CIA’s released scan.
Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700210001-7 7194 Nicholl's Town 9 " Conch Bay /NASSAU Rose !. Loggerhead Point New Town, 8508 AIRPORT Nassau Lyford Cava Winton" .6180 Adelaide *Rat Cay blue hole New Providence Stafford Creck 7182 4704. 1392 . . 136 12 Staniard Creek GREAT BAHAMA BANK Had Bargain 16264 . Coakley Town 6 Andros Town Fresh Creek JaMantic Cay Williams Island 4 Flamingo Point Pyes Harbour. 13 GREAT BAHAMA 18 Mangroves Cay Sharp Rock Point 4536 Cay 4632 -600 New Zealand Point "Kemps Bay & 12 Green Cay @ Red Shank Point "Deep Creek > .. 1 4428 A High Point Cay G ..... 4158 4392 24 2280 6 4344 Grassy Creek Cays Snap Point Water Cays ." 3 Dpllys Cay Curly Cut Cays 12 4 South Cay TROPIC OF CANCER Tonque of & Long Island the Ocean TURKS AND CAICOS IS. CUBA Great Inagua Island Andros Island Guantánamo. 20 . Blue- hole areas pinpointed by author - Cayman Islands HAITI' SEA 0 STATUTE MILES Port au Prince JAMAICA *Kingston DRAWN BY ALFRED ZEBARTH COMPILED BY LEO J. BOBERSCHMIDT GEOGRAPHIC ART DIVISION C) NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 0 150 FLORIDA Grand Bahama l. 7. Great Abaco |Island STATUTE MILES Miami BAHAMA Nassau Eleuthera ATLANTIC OCEAN 28€ Andros Island LINew Cat Island Providence ISLANDS San Salvador Cay Sal Bank Great Bahama Bank CARIBBEAN Windward Passage Soundings in feet 20 349 Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700210001-7 :33 39 3840 "ig Wood 4920 3336 4512 &Moxey Town 3420 6 BANK SODDEN WITH SWAMPS and severed by wide "bights," low-lying Andros, largest of the Bahama Islands, sprawls for a hundred miles beside a deep Atlantic channel that widens into the Tongue of the Ocean (pages 356-7). A sharp beak on the island's soggy western side broadens the lump of land to forty miles; 7,500 islanders live along the drier eastern edge. Reefs near the channel hold most of the blue holes, whose unusually strong currents set them apart from similar formations around the globe. 5184 12 San Andros. SAN ANDROS-+- AIRPORT 15 7 GREAT BAHAMA BANK 6 - limestone more than 14,000 feet thick -- stood above the sea after the Ice Age locked water in mammoth glaciers. Rain gnawed holes in the porous rock. Then came the great thaw, when the ocean rose and flooded the shafts, turning them into blue gems dotting the bank. 21 North Bight - Middle Bight ?Mangrove TONGUE OF THE OCEAN 2184 Little Creek t Straits of Fl INTERNATIONAL 400
Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700210001-7 RADAS-AAZ000000700210001-7 EKTACHROME, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION The Tongue of the Ocean TEEP-BLUE BRANCH of the Atlantic basin cuts into the azure Bahama Bank, photographed from 105 miles above by Apollo 9 astronauts orbit- ing the earth. Near southern Andros at left, the Tongue of the Ocean, partly obscured by clouds, curves into an oval tip 40 miles across. Scientists believe that turbulence on the ocean floor formed the Tongue by keeping it clean of the limestone particles that built the surrounding bank. Tidal currents receding from the shallows furrow the fim. Seventy miles north, the Wall slopes steeply 6,000 feet to the channel floor (next page). Open- ings along the Wall may admit sea water later dis- gorged from blue holes, which could explain why the output of the holes appears to exceed intake. 356 357