Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac are, in reality, the summits of independent fault blocks that rise from the depths of the Caribbean Sea. This book traces the geological evolution of these islands over the last 30 to 35 million years. The balance between deposition of carbonate sediments and karst development of the exposed land was dictated by the interaction between ever-changing sea levels and vertical tectonic movement of the fault blocks. Today, drinking water needed for the ever-increasing populations of the islands is supplied largely by desalinization plants that are located in accord with a detailed knowledge of the bedrock. This book is based on an extensive data base that has been assembled over the last 40 years of field work and laboratory analyses. Noteworthy aspects of this database include: Approximately 60 visits to the islands over last 40 years – sampling and documentation of virtually every accessible outcrop on the islands (including some that no longer exist). Most samples have been fully documented petrographically and geochemically. Data from 120 wells that have been drilled to depths up to 245 m (most less than 125 m). Wells have been cored and/or chip sampled. Full documentation of drilling histories, XRD analyses of samples, extensive geochemical analyses for major and minor elements, stable isotopes, 87Sr/86Sr ratios, and Rare Earth Elements from numerous samples. Mapping and sampling of modern sediments, including sediment cores, from most of the lagoons around Grand Cayman. Extensive thin section petrography, scanning electron microscope, and electron microprobe analyses of the dolostones and limestones that form the bedrock of the islands. Samples and data collected from numerous caves on Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac have been used to track their developmental history. Detailed analyses of phosphates collected from Little Cayman. Detailed analyses of terra rossa collected from each of the islands.

This book on geology and hydrogeology of carbonate islands is volume 54 in the Developments in Sedimentology series.

In the course of the last century a considerable amount of scientific work has been carried out in the Cayman Islands. The results of this (outlined in Chapter 1) are widely distributed in unpublished reports, university theses, various scientific publications and books, many of these sources being difficult to find and some now unobtainable. The purpose of this book, therefore, is to bring all this scattered information together and to present a coherent account of the biogeography and ecology of the Islands, as an easily available reference source and as a foundation on which future work can be based.

Mining and geological survey work in Jamaica goes back several hundred years and was initiated by the Europeans when they colonized the Island. The year 2019 marked 160 years since the first Government-commissioned Geological Survey of Jamaica. This is one of the oldest survey activity of this type in the World! This book seeks to commemorate this heritage. It is one of the first books of its kind examining the evolution of the mineral sector and geological survey work of Jamaica, set in the framework of the Country's history of over 500 years. The Reader will explore a relatively unfamiliar side of the Country's development, linked to popular historical stories that shaped the Nation. The information presented are mostly documented in dated academic literature that are not gauged for a wide audience. This book however, aims to make this information accessible for a wider readership such as students, amateur scientist, non-professionals or anyone who wishes to learn about the rich history and heritage, and the contributions to national development from Europe and much later, North America.

1919/28 cumulation includes material previously issued in the 1919/20-1935/36 issues and also material not published separately for 1927/28. 1929/39 cumulation includes material previously issued in the 1929/30-1935/36 issues and also material for 1937-39 not published separately.

Vols. 1-108 include Proceedings of the society (separately paged, beginning with v. 30)

The greatest shipwreck disaster in the history of the Cayman Islands The story has been passed through generations for more than two centuries. Details vary depending on who is doing the telling, but all refer to this momentous maritime event as the Wreck of the Ten Sail. Sometimes misunderstood as the loss of a single ship, it was in fact the wreck of ten vessels at once, comprising one of the most dramatic maritime disasters in all of Caribbean naval history. Surviving historical documents and the remains of the wrecked ships in the sea confirm that the narrative is more than folklore. It is a legend based on a historical event in which HMS Convert, formerly L’Inconstante, a recent prize from the French, and 9 of her 58-ship merchant convoy sailing from Jamaica to Britain, wrecked on the jagged eastern reefs of Grand Cayman in 1794. The incident has historical significance far beyond the boundaries of the Cayman Islands. It is tied to British and French history during the French Revolution, when these and other European nations were competing for military and commercial dominance around the globe. The Wreck of the Ten Sail attests to the worldwide distribution of European war and trade at the close of the eighteenth century. In Cayman’s 1794 Wreck of the Ten Sail: Peace, War, and Peril in the Caribbean, Margaret E. Leshikar-Denton focuses on the ships, the people, and the wreck itself to define their place in Caymanian, Caribbean, and European history. This well-researched volume weaves together rich oral folklore accounts, invaluable supporting documents found in archives in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, and France, and tangible evidence of the disaster from archaeological sites on the reefs of the East End.