Alacranes Reef MX

This "blue jewel" is mostly an underwater reef with five small above-water islets. Isla Perez, at the southern end of the reef, has a lighthouse located on it maintained by a semipermenant population.

When I digitized this reef, using Landsat imagery, it looked as if all of these islets had no vegetation. The color on the islets gave the appearance of brackish salt water. I know this stretch of coast gets hammered by hurricanes nearly every year. So, it made sense that these islets had most probably been scoured clean of any vegetation. However, every website I visited that discusses these islets consistently describe them as being covered with sparse vegetation. consequently, I switched the brackish water layer to sparse vegetation.

This reef is one of seven Marine Protection Areas maintained by Mexico. If you wish to visit and dive on the reef, you can catch a ride from the town of Prospero.

I did come across a couple of links that will give you more specific information about this reef.

The first link is from the Smithsonian Department of Paleobiology about Isla Perez. The next link is in Spanish and it discusses both Alacranes Reef and Arenas Cay. The final link is from an outfit called GulfBase.org. They have an article that discusses Arrecife Alacran.

The digitizing proscess was relatively fast for this reef.  The different reef layers and their respective classification were a challenge.

Enjoy!

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