Winter Break: Biogeoscience in Belize

Fall Term Course, 6 credits

GEOL 232      Tropical Marine Biogeoscience

This course will focus on background needed to perform fieldwork in Belize.  We will use sources from the primary literature, as well as borrowings from textbooks, to learn some basics about oceanography, the Caribbean Sea, benthic marine organisms and habitats, and ecosystem dynamics in tropical marine and marginal marine settings.  These settings will include coral reef, sea grass, mangrove and other adjacent habitats.  Teams will formulate research topics to pursue during the 2 weeks of fieldwork over Winter Break.  We may get together several times during Fall Term to practice snorkeling in the pool.

Winter Break: 2 weeks at the University of Belize’s Calabash Caye Field Station

Emphasis will be on field observations and data collection for team research projects.  Students must be competent swimmers.

The University of Belize's Calabash Caye Field Station is an excellent location to conduct such a field course. It is located 32 miles into the Caribbean Sea from Belize City (1 to 1.5 hr travel time by boat) and is within Belize’s largest offshore atoll, Turneffe (part of the Belize Barrier Reef Tract). This site is one of the few remaining marine areas that still have a high wealth of biodiversity and with majority of its mangroves intact. The field station is strategically located within a mile from coral reefs, sea grass beds, back reef flats and mangroves.  In fact, many habitat sites, including coral reefs, are just about 300m out from the caye in very shallow water.  Work would be mostly by snorkeling, including both shoreline and boat work, and participants need to be competent swimmers.

The Calabash Caye Field Station is an idyllic site for a group.  It can accommodate a maximum of 30 people. They have 24 hour solar electricity, a wet lab, a dry lab and a complete dive center inclusive of dive tanks and compressor and equipment for snorkeling. Logistics are straightforward, as the station also has a full service kitchen with cooks.  Their fleet of boats consists of 3 vessels, a 38 footer and two 25 footers that are operated by licensed, experience boat captains.  The atoll is reached by boat, which is schedulable through the station.  The island itself has a dense cover of coconut trees and mature palm forest and is fringed on the lagoon side by red, black, and white mangrove species. On the eastern, exposed side, there is a well-developed fringing reef separated from the shore by shallow sea grass beds. The mangrove, sea grass and reef habitats within the atoll are still relatively healthy and intact. These ecosystems provide habitat for a number of threatened and endangered species.