Search, compare and book from our hand selected resorts Ready to start planning your dive adventure to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula? Instead it is thought that the flow of water through the limestone peninsula is diverted away by the impermeable rock, creating the ideal environment for the creation of sinkholes in a ring that marks the rim of the crater, and further into the Yucatan peninsula.
The impact crater itself is buried too deeply by new limestone laid down since the event to directly influence the creation of sinkholes in more modern times. The vast amount of energy released by this impact event - equivalent to 100 trillion tons of TNT - shattered and reformed the deep continental rock around the impact site and farther into the peninsula, creating a vast impermeable mass. In fact, this ‘Ring of Cenotes’ marks the rim of the famous Chicxulub crater - the impact site of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, along with much of the life on earth over 66 million years ago. When viewed on a map, over 900 of the cenotes are found in a ring that runs south near the city of Merida. But the Yucatan is unique simply because of the sheer number of cenotes - there are over 7,000 of them! So what makes the Yucatan so different? Sinkholes and karst landscapes are found around the world - in fact pretty much anywhere where limestone has been raised above sea level. As tectonic plates shifted and sea levels dropped, this vast slab of rock was raised above the surface of the ocean, exposing the limestone to the eroding rain and creating the perfect conditions for the creation of cenotes. The Yucatan peninsula is basically a flat piece of limestone, formed in a shallow seabed over millions of years. The Chicxulub meteor impact and death of the dinosaurs This caused degradation and erosion, allowing many underground caves to become flooded and then dry out repeatedly. Since the meteor impact, the Yucatan Peninsula has emerged and has submerged several times. This circular area has the highest concentration of limestone, allowing it to form the region’s most dramatic subterranean systems.
However, a high-density circular formation of caverns and caves lines the crater rim left behind by the Chicxulub impact. Cenotes are scattered throughout the Yucatan Peninsula. And, while all that limestone deposited by the meteor does little for farming or agriculture, it supports a vast jungle ecosystem and creates the perfect conditions for subterranean caverns to form. A massive meteor strike in the Gulf of Mexico changed the region’s topography and geology, depositing large amounts of limestone sediment that formed layers, eventually building up enough soil to create a peninsula.Ĭaves and cenotes can only develop in heavily mineralised stone and sediment. The formation of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula began more than 65 million years ago when the entire area was covered by the ocean. Why Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula has so many caves Often lost to the jungle and undisturbed for millennia, these underwater galleries now lend valuable insight into how the Yucatan Peninsula’s land and sea have evolved and changed. In more modern times, the caves and caverns where used by the ancient Mayan - and this is why Mexico’s cenotes are well known for their fossils and artefacts that date back thousands of years. Then, when the ice age ended, and the planet’s polar ice caps melted again, sea levels rose, flooding the cenotes. This left limestone bedrock and coral reefs exposed to air, creating the perfect conditions for the creation of sinkholes - and shelter for species of animal alive during this period. Mexico’s cenotes developed during the last ice age when sea levels were much lower. This seemingly oily mix of fresh and saltwater swirls and changes as divers swim past, producing a dizzying and dazzling show made entirely of H2O. And in cenotes that eventually meet the ocean, divers can witness a bizarre visual effect known as a halocline. Many of these underground systems feature massive crystals and suspended stones, walls that seem to melt, stalactites, and stalagmites. The ongoing processes of karstification, in which the limestone is dissolved and recrystallised once again, creates the dramatic formations seen in caves of all kinds - including cenotes.
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