169 Sentences With "cenotes" | Random Sentence Generator

"The cenotes as karst windows expose the groundwater," Brankovits explained.

I'm not allowed to bring my camera for these two cenotes.

It isn't just extinct sea creatures you find in these cenotes.

Then, I can have fun in the ocean and dive some cenotes!

I make friends with small catfish while J. explains more about the cenotes.

Since I was already there, I figured might as well dive some cenotes.

"Caves are accessed through natural sinkholes or, as locally called, cenotes," he said.

The area is a system of 25 lakes and cenotes, or natural sinkholes.

We will be going to three different cenotes today: Cenotes Kulkulcan and Chak-Mool, which are right next to each other, and Cenote Tajma Ha. Cenote-diving is essentially cavern diving, with a natural light source that's visible at all times.

Chichén Itzá sits atop a complex subterranean water system that includes sinkholes called cenotes.

Over time, water erodes the rock, forming sinkholes, cenotes, jagged limestone formations, and caves.

They are accessible through cenotes, which are places where the surface rock has collapsed.

Some cenotes acquired particular religious significance to the Maya, whose descendents continue to inhabit the region.

Plus, I'll be diving cenotes in Playa del Carmen, so that's my add-on diving excursion.

Some cenotes acquired particular religious significance to the Maya, whose descendants continue to inhabit the region.

"Cenotes" are natural sinkholes filled with freshwater— and there are several thousand of them in Mexico.

Cenotes are water-filled sinkholes and are the only source of fresh water in Mexico's Yucatan state.

Cenote and cave guides are required to bring two tanks into the cenotes in case of an air emergency.

We pop up into an air pocket, where she explains what cenotes are and its significance to the Mayan people.

The Yucatán Peninsula is home to dozens of cenotes — natural sinkholes that result from a collapse of the underlying bedrock.

This work could shed light on the cultural practices of ancient Mayans, who conducted ceremonies and sacrificial offerings around the cenotes.

One of these cenotes — the biggest in the world — is a 347-kilometer (216-mile) labyrinth of underwater channels and passageways.

Speaking on behalf of Travel Republic, Frank Brehany said that the underground cenotes were a highlight of his trip to Mexico.

Before we gear up, she leads me from the parking lot to the cenotes to show me the route I will take.

The cenotes of Yucatán, still mostly unexplored, have galvanized some of the best cave divers to prowl through these nightmarish subterranean labyrinths.

Mayans believed that cenotes were the gateway to the underworld, and yeah, after visiting this one in particular, I can see why.

At Hotel Makaabá, an open, concrete grid rises above a multilevel, sun-warmed pool meant to mimic the lagoon and its cenotes.

From the darkest depths of Peru to the crystal blue underground cenotes of Mexico, there is something incredibly alluring about Latin America.

All cenotes have mapped out routes and she explains exactly what to expect along the route so I am not surprised by anything.

I especially feel so when I'm doing something that people think I can't do, like paddle boarding, kayaking, cycling and exploring beaches and cenotes.

The water in the cenotes is predominantly still, which means it takes longer to sediment to re-settle, therefore inhibit visibility for other divers.

Hey, when you've watched blazing fire dances, gone swimming in ancient cenotes, and shopped the local boutiques, you've definitely earned a shot (or three).

It's possible that these animals fell into structures called "cenotes," which are water sinkholes that remain common in the Yucatán region to this day.

Researchers say they found 248 cenotes at the 347-km (216-mile) cave system known as Sac Actun, near the beach resort of Tulum.

We thought it'd be nice to break up our beach days and also be a good use of our bikes to visit cenotes this day.

This is a relatively easy diving cenote with a lot of wiggle room, but some cenotes have narrow spaces that require a flattened body posture.

We climbed the steep stone steps to the Governor's Palace, whose massive mosaic facade boasts 103 masks of the rain god Chac (no cenotes nearby).

The owner, J., suggested some easy-diving cenotes and requested that once I was certified, to send her screenshots of the certification pages in my diving logbook.

After all, when you decide to take a casual dip in Mexico's ancient, cerulean-streamed cenotes (think: flooded cave), you're bound to encounter a few unexpected surprises.

I've climbed down into ancient cenotes (natural caverns filled with crystal-clear water) and experienced the reverence of swimming among stalactites and stalagmites thousands of years old.

Because there are no neighboring resorts competing for access, guests can take nearly private swims and snorkel runs through the clear water of the cenotes (underwater caves).

Like that town, Bacalar has cenotes, natural swimming holes in the limestone rock; early Mayan archaeological sites (Dzibanche and Kohunlich); and, of course, that gorgeous, photogenic water.

The Yucatan peninsula is studded with monumental relics of the Maya people, whose cities drew upon an extensive network of sinkholes linked to subterranean waters known as cenotes.

Likewise, fragments of pottery, artwork, and statues have been found in the caves, which may have been deliberately thrown into the cenotes as part of religious or cultural rites.

There is a bohemian flair with yoga retreats and rustic huts on the beach, and exciting outdoor activities and attractions like "cenotes" (underwater cave sink holes) and ancient ruins.

In addition to immersing in experiences at the resorts, the winner will also document local activities, whether that's discovering ancient Mayan ruins, swimming in "cenotes" (underwater sinkholes) or attending nightclubs.

The city was built on top of a network of waterways, including sinkholes called cenotes, which the ancient Maya believed were sacred places that provided a portal to the underworld.

They also found a new system, an 11-mile-long (18 km), 66 feet deep (20 meters) cavern dubbed "the mother of all cenotes," which was listed as an individual system.

There are known cenotes directly to the north, east, south and west of El Castillo, which de Anda says indicates the settlement pattern is directly related to the natural sacred geography.

Chichen itza has four visible cenotes, but two years ago, Mexican scientist Rene Chavez Segura determined that there is a hidden cenote under El Castillo, which has never been seen by archaeologists.

But before you're ready to swim in one of Tulum's famous cenotes or commune with its vibrant sea life during a snorkeling adventure, you've got to scope out the city's unique style, obviously.

Up on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, between the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, the dense, tropical jungle is littered with sinkholes called cenotes, where limestone has collapsed to expose the groundwater below.

Believed by the Mayans to represent the fluid portal between life and death, cenotes stud the lush landscape of the Quintana Roo region, offering visitors and locals alike the chance to explore their strangely stunning subterranean wonders.

During my trip to Mexico, I wore the shoes for hiking, biking, ATVing, and navigating and swimming in the region's rocky, water-filled sinkholes and caves called cenotes — and they far exceeded my expectations for a water shoe.

Read: 33,500-year-old ruins shed light on mysterious Moche people "For Mayans, cenotes were the entrance to the underworld," says Guillermo de Anda, an underwater archaeologist who is leading the team from the Great Mayan Aquifer Project.

In Riviera Maya, which stretches from Cancun to Tulum in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, drones capture breathtaking scenery: white sand beaches, turquoise waters, tropical jungles, "cenotes" (underwater sink holes) and nature reserves, which are unique to the area.

Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads there are two stories i want to tell you that i don't have all the words for in the beginning of the story i look up images of cenotes on the internet at 5 a.m.

Cenotes are filled with both fresh and salt water, because when the limestone collapses and sinks, it creates a massive reservoir where the newly exposed fresh groundwater meets the salt water that's seeping in from the ocean via an underground channel.

The stereotypical cenotes often resemble small circular ponds, measuring some tens of meters in diameter with sheer drops at the edges. Most cenotes, however, require some degree of stooping or crawling to access the water.

Lanes wind among the residences and walls. The residential areas of the site contain many cenotes, perhaps as many as 40. Settlement was the most dense in the southwestern part of the city where cenotes are more numerous.

This suggests that Mayan religious officiants believed that only certain cenotes led to the underworld, and sacrifices placed in others would serve no purpose. It also suggests that the status of the victim as alive or dead was unimportant. The occasional appearance of human remains in non-sacrificial cenotes can be attributed to rare errors in judgement on the part of the shaman. The actual pattern by which a particular victim's remains became interred in which cenotes remains a subject of conjecture.

The cenotes have long been relied on by ancient and contemporary Maya people.BBC: Planet Earth, part 4: Caves.

The coastal discharge point(s) of this cave system have not yet been humanly explored through to the ocean, although large volumes of groundwater were demonstrated by dye tracing to flow towards Caleta Xel-Ha, a nearby coastal bedrock lagoon. The name Dos Ojos refers to two neighbouring cenotes that connect into a very large cavern zone shared between the two. These two cenotes appear like two large eyes into the underground. The original cave diving exploration of the whole cave system began through these cenotes.

Blue holes are distinguished from cenotes in that the latter are inland voids usually containing fresh groundwater rather than seawater.

Hildebrand, Penfield, et al.; 4. Along the edge of the crater are clusters of cenotes or sinkholes, which suggest that there was a water basin inside the feature during the Neogene period, after the impact. The groundwater of such a basin would have dissolved the limestone and created the caves and cenotes beneath the surface.

It contains 7 historic haciendas, archaeological sites, cenotes as well as a nature preservation and the Biological Sciences campus for UADY.

Huge karst conduits have been explored by speleo-divers. The bay of Sami has many cenotes, with impressive shafts, that have been inventoried in a GIS Database [see external links]. The brackish water flowing through the cenotes outflows along the sea shore, forming brackish coastal and submarine springs. The groundwater of Melissani cave outflows at the "Fridi" beach.

Cenotes are the main water source for many ancient and contemporary Maya people, as there are no rivers and very few lakes on the peninsula.

Bolonchén, Mexico, used as source of water, 1842 In the north and northwest of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, the cenotes generally overlie vertically extensive voids penetrating below the modern water table. However, very few of these cenotes appear to be connected with horizontally extensive underground river systems, with water flow through them being more likely dominated by aquifer matrix and fracture flows. In contrast, the cenotes along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula (within the state of Quintana Roo) often provide access to extensive underwater cave systems, such as Sistema Ox Bel Ha, Sistema Sac Actun/Sistema Nohoch Nah Chich and Sistema Dos Ojos.

Caves formed within the limestone, and as the Pecos River eroded the escarpment, the caves eventually collapsed, leaving behind several deep, almost circular lakes known as cenotes.

Some of the recreational activities available in Puerto Aventuras include: golf, tennis, sportfishing, snorkeling, SCUBA diving, swimming with dolphins and manatees, and visiting some of the many nearby cenotes.

The Mesoamerican ballgame, for example, employed various sizes of solid rubber balls and balls were burned as offerings in temples, buried in votive deposits, and laid in sacred bogs and cenotes.

Like most of the Yucatan Peninsula José María Morelos is entirely flat with a gentle slope towards the sea, so from west to east. Like the rest of the peninsula's surface the land has a limestone base that does not allow the formation of surface water flows such as rivers and streams, the water instead form flows in underground rivers that sometimes rise to the surface in cenotes. Lakes and cenotes are the major bodies of water in the municipality.

Like most of the Yucatan Peninsula, Lázaro Cárdenas is entirely flat with a gentle slope towards the sea, so from west to east. Like the rest of the peninsula's surface, the land has a limestone base that does not allow the formation of surface water flows such as rivers and streams, the water instead forms flows in underground rivers that sometimes rise to the surface in the cenotes. Lakes and cenotes are the major bodies of water in the municipality.

The widely distributed cenotes are the only perennial source of potable water and have long been the principal sources of water in much of the region. Major Maya settlements required access to adequate water supplies, and therefore cities, including the famous Chichen Itza, were built around these natural wells. Some cenotes like the Sacred Cenote in Chichen Itza played an important role in Maya rites. Believing that these pools were gateways to the afterlife, the Maya sometimes threw valuable items into them.

It is theorised that these cenotes were formed by the collapse of large underground water- filled chambers following the lowering of sea levels at the most recent Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago. The chambers themselves are likely to have been formed by groundwater acidified by gaseous Carbon Dioxide (CO2) rising up through fractures from the magma chambers during the volcanic eruptions occurring during the Pleistocene and the Holocene rather than by the usual acidification process involving the absorption of atmospheric CO2 by water prior to entering the water table. The cenotes then filled with freshwater as the sea level started to rise at about 8,000 years ago. The presence of stromatolites in at least eight cenotes including the Little Blue Lake is suggested as being an indicator of the recent formation of these landforms.

Radar topography reveals the ring of the crater; clustered around the crater's trough are numerous sinkholes, suggesting a prehistoric oceanic basin in the depression left by the impact (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech). Although cenotes are found widely throughout much of the Yucatán Peninsula, a higher-density circular alignment of cenotes overlies the measured rim of the Chicxulub crater. This crater structure, identified from the alignment of cenotes, but also subsequently mapped using geophysical methods (including gravity mapping) and also drilled into with core recovery, has been dated to the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene geologic periods, 66 million years ago. This meteorite impact at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary is therefore associated with the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and is also known as the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.

Gravity anomaly map of the Chicxulub impact area. The coastline is shown as a white line. A series of concentric features reveals the location of the crater. White dots represent cenotes (water-filled sinkholes).

Aerial view of a small portion of Chichen Itza Chichen Itza is located in the eastern portion of Yucatán state in Mexico. The northern Yucatán Peninsula is karst, and the rivers in the interior all run underground. There are four visible, natural sink holes, called cenotes, that could have provided plentiful water year round at Chichen, making it attractive for settlement. Of these cenotes, the "Cenote Sagrado" or Sacred Cenote (also variously known as the Sacred Well or Well of Sacrifice), is the most famous.

Upon its release, 'Cenotes' has received positive reviews. Zach Duvall of Metal Review described the band as "...one of the most adventurous and unique bands in music today -- music, not just metal." In his review for Revolver Magazine, Jason Le Miere concluded that "...each element is impressive, but it is the way that they flow together, perfectly complementing one another into a vital, organic whole, that makes Cenotes truly remarkable," and considers the album "more accessible, more direct, and more metal than Giant Squid’s powerful past works".

A large number of cenotes are located in the Tulum area such as Maya Blue, Naharon, Temple of Doom, Tortuga, Vacaha, Grand Cenote, Abejas, Nohoch Kiin, and Carwash cenotes and cave systems. The tourist destination is now divided into four main areas: the archaeological site, the pueblo (or town), the zona hotelera (or hotel zone), and the biosphere reserve of Sian Ka'an. In 1995, tourism came to a brief halt as the powerful Hurricane Roxanne pounded into Tulum, packing 115 mph winds. Damage was moderate.

Like most of the Yucatan Peninsula, Solidaridad is almost entirely flat with a gentle slope towards the sea, so from west to east, most of the area never reaches an altitude above above sea level. Like the rest of the peninsula's surface the land has a limestone base that does not allow the formation of surface water flows such as rivers and streams, the water instead form flows in underground rivers that sometimes rise to the surface in the cenotes. Lakes and cenotes are the major water bodies of the municipality.

The sacred Cenote Ik Kil A cenote ( or ; ) is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath. Especially associated with the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, cenotes were sometimes used by the ancient Maya for sacrificial offerings. The term derives from a word used by the low-land Yucatec Maya——to refer to any location with accessible groundwater. Cenotes are common geological forms in low altitude regions, particularly on islands, coastlines, and platforms with young post-Paleozoic limestones that have little soil development.

The terrain is flat and rocky. Primary use is for grazing, agriculture and forestry. Water sources are underground and include six cenotes. The climate is sub-humid with rain falling primarily between the months of May and July.

At the north of Xpu Há Bay is the Cenote Manati, one of the largest natural water cenotes in the region. According to INEGI, the village has only two full-time inhabitants and one year-round occupied dwelling.

Theobroma cacao, or tree of chocolate- Gómez-Pompa discovered the use of this tree as an ancient crop in rejolladas and cenotes within the Yucatán Peninsula. He discovered the use of Theobroma cacao, or the tree of chocolate, as ancient crops in rejolladas and cenotes within the Yucatán Peninsula. This confirmed his hypothesis on the anthropogenic origins of the Mayan forests and advanced future research in the domestication of tropical trees. Gómez-Pompa created a database for the Flora of Veracruz project in the 1960s that is still utilized to this day as a continuous source for many botanical institutions.

Like most of the Yucatan Peninsula Tulum is entirely flat with a gentle slope towards the sea, so from west to east, the area never reaches a higher altitude than above sea level. The municipality is above sea level on average. Like the rest of the peninsula's surface the land has a limestone base that does not allow the formation of surface water flows such as rivers and streams; the water instead flows in underground rivers that sometimes rise to the surface in the cenotes. Lakes and cenotes are the major bodies of water in the municipality.

The discovery of golden sacrificial artifacts in some cenotes led to the archaeological exploration of most cenotes in the first part of the 20th century. Edward Herbert Thompson (1857–1935), an American diplomat who had bought the Chichen Itza site, began dredging the Sacred Cenote there in 1904. He discovered human skeletons and sacrificial objects confirming a local legend, the Cult of the Cenote, involving human sacrifice to the rain god Chaac by ritual casting of victims and objects into the cenote. The remains of this cultural heritage are protected by the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.

Certain cenotes contain a large number of human remains, including both males and females, and young children/infants. According to archaeologist Guillermo de Anda of the University of Yucatán, evidence from Mayan mythology suggests that many young victims (most aged 6 to 12) were male. While the classical images of a female Mayan sacrifice being flung alive to drown in a cenote are pervasive, Guillermo de Anda's writings on the subject suggest that most sacrificial victims — juveniles who were either purchased or captured while their parents were working in the fields, warriors captured in battle, or elites captured during conflicts with neighboring clans — were usually (though not always) killed prior to being thrown into the cenote, and in many cases, dozens of miles from the cenotes in which their bodies were eventually deposited. He also notes that only a certain set of cenotes was used in this way, while others were reserved for domestic purposes (de Anda 2007).

The Samulá Cenote in Valladolid, Yucatán, Mexico Cenotes are formed by dissolution of rock and the resulting subsurface void, which may or may not be linked to an active cave system, and the subsequent structural collapse. Rock that falls into the water below is slowly removed by further dissolution, creating space for more collapse blocks. The rate of collapse increases during periods when the water table is below the ceiling of the void, since the rock ceiling is no longer buoyantly supported by the water in the void. Cenotes may be fully collapsed creating an open water pool, or partially collapsed with some portion of a rock overhanging above the water.

Choo-Ha, Tamcach-Ha and Multun-Ha are a series of small cenotes close to the Mayan site of Cobá in central Yucatán Peninsula. All of them are accessible to the public for swimming. Choo-Ha has a small entrance of only about 3 by 4 meters.

The municipality has several natural attractions. There are pristine and undeveloped beaches among them: Barra del Tordo, Morón and Rancho Nuevo. They are very popular among bass fishing aficionados and winter Texans. They are easily reached from Tampico, Monterrey or Brownsville, TX. Cenotes attract sight-seers and cave divers.

The Mexican blind brotula inhabits the cenotes (water-filled sink holes) and aquifers in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where the temperature is between throughout the year. These are typically anchialine (connected to the sea), but the Mexican blind brotula is only known from the sections with fresh or brackish water.

The Little Blue Lake is one of a number of similar landforms occurring in the area to the south of the dormant volcano in Mount Gambier including the area around the dormant volcano at Mount Schank. These cenotes are similar in form as they all have collapse dolines with circular plans, cliffs, lakes filled to the water table, large rubble cones on their floors and clustered together in several groups along in the flat coastal plain composed of a Miocene limestone known as Gambier Limestone. These cenotes differ from other karst landforms in the south east of South Australia by their relative depth (i.e. as deep as in one cenote), the absence of any underwater phreatic passages and a different water chemistry.

As in most of the Yucatán Peninsula, the territory is quite flat, reaching a maximum altitude of 10 meters above sea level and has a gently sloping south-north direction, towards the Gulf of Mexico; physiographically the whole territory belongs to the Yucatecan Carso. All over town there are no rivers due to high soil permeability, thi is a characteristic of the Yucatan area, water seeps into the ground where it forms underground rivers that form cenotes, which are outcrops to the surface of these subterranean river, in Telchac Pueblo there are 11 cenotes, 10 of which are open and a 1 semi-open. The entire town is part of the Yucatan Basin belonging to the Northern Yucatan hydrological region.

In the interior of the state, there are a number of water parks such as El Remate in Tankuché and San Vicente Chuc-Say on a former hacienda of the same name. These generally take advantage of the local rivers, springs and cenotes. Ecotourism includes caves such as Xculhoc, Chuncedro and Xtacumbilxuna’an or Mujer Escondida.

The land throughout the municipality is virtually flat, without any areas of the elevation, and like much of the Yucatan Peninsula has no surface water streams. There are cenotes both underground and at the surface (collapsed caverns). The climate is semi-humid, with temperature range between a maximum of 40 °C and minimum 14 °C.

Cenotes are very important to the Mayas. The famous cenote at Chichen Itza proves to be important with the many findings of artifacts and skeletal remains. Sacrifices were common at this site among the ancient Mayans. Different people were sacrificed and findings show that most of the people were men and children (Bruhns 1999:209).

Marcus 1978.Tiesler & Cucina 2006. The city of Chichen Itza, the main focus of Maya regional power from the Late Classical period, appears to have also been a major focus of human sacrifice. There are two natural sinkholes, or cenotes, at the site of the city, which would have provided a plentiful supply of potable water.

Sistema Ox Bel Ha (from Mayan meaning "Three Paths of Water"; short Ox Bel Ha) is a cave system in Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is the longest explored underwater cave in the world and ranks fourth including dry caves. As of May 2017 the surveyed length is of underwater passages. There are more than 140 cenotes in the system.

The topography of the municipality is at an average elevation of . The water resources in the municipality is only of underground water known locally as cenotes, as there no surface water sources within its limits. The predominant climate here is of warm sub-humid conditions. Precipitation occurs in the months from May to July and the rainfall is only .

Too many divers, even experienced ones, have died for ignoring safety recommendations. Contrary to cenote cavern diving, cenote cave diving requires special equipment and training (certification for cave diving). However, both cavern and cave diving require detailed briefings, diving experience and weight adjustment to freshwater buoyancy. The cenotes are usually filled with rather cool fresh water.

Sediment off the Yucatán Peninsula. The peninsula is the exposed portion of the larger Yucatán Platform, all of which is composed of carbonate and soluble rocks, being mostly limestone although dolomite and evaporites are also present at various depths. The whole of the Yucatán Peninsula is an unconfined flat lying karst landscape. Sinkholes, known locally as cenotes, are widespread in the northern lowlands.

The documentation of the flooded and dry cave networks and cenotes provided by the QRSS is of fundamental importance in regional and site specific scale planning and management of development, water resources, waste disposal facilities, hazardous material handling site selection, and so forth. Certified cave divers may obtain an information package on underwater survey and cartography opportunities in Quintana Roo.

The Yellow Guide to the Mayan Ruins of San Gervasio, Cozumel, Amazon books To the north of this arch, on the western edge of the religious pathway lies a small hole in the bedrock, similar to others that can be found throughout the ruins. These natural karst formations are called cenotes (from the Mayan word ‘’d'zonot’’) and served as water sources for the inhabitants of San Gervasio.

INAFED (2005) As with most of the Yucatán Peninsula there are no surface rivers or creeks, but there are subterranean water-filled sinkholes (cenotes) some of which are naturally exposed at the surface. Average annual rainfall, which is regular in the summer months, amounts to approximately . The climate is classed as subhumid. Tekom was created as a municipio libre of Yucatán state on 1 January 1920.

The northwestern Yucatán Peninsula is a limestone plain, with no rivers or streams, lakes or ponds. The region is pockmarked with natural sinkholes, called cenotes, which expose the water table to the surface. One of the most impressive of these is the Sacred Cenote, which is in diameterCano 2002, p.85. and surrounded by sheer cliffs that drop to the water table some below.

The area ranges from wetlands, to low mountain ranges, and has several bodies of water, including lakes, rivers, streams and cenotes. The Reserve was created in 1990 to protect the largest area of American tropical forest remaining north of the Amazon. The biosphere reserve model, implemented by UNESCO, seeks to promote a balance between human activities and the biosphere by including sustainable economic development in conservation planning.

The deep passages include the "Wakulla Room", the "Beyond Main Base (BMB) passage", "Jill's room" and "The Next Generation passage". In August 2012 Dos Ojos was connected through a dry passage to Sistema Sac Actun. With March 2014 the total length of the combined system measures . Dos Ojos is an anchialine cave system with connections to naturally intruding marine water and tidal influence in the cenotes.

Shortly thereafter Stone's Piedra-Sombra Corporation began doing business as Stone Aerospace in Del Valle, Texas. After the successful autonomous exploration by DEPTHX of several cenotes in Mexico,NASA Robot Completes Test Drive of Exploration Capabilities PR Newswire. 31 May 2007 NASA then funded the ENDURANCE Project, which spent two seasons exploring frozen-over lakes in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica.Antarctic diving robot practices for Europa.

Caves are linked with wind,Pugh 2005: 50 rain, and clouds. The Zinacantecos of the Chiapas highlands even believe that lightning comes from caves. The Yukatek and Lacandon believe that caves and cenotes are where rain deities reside and the Yukatek of the sixteenth century sacrificed humans to appease these deities.Morehart 2005: 174-75 At Dos Pilas the Cueva de Murciélagos rests beneath the royal palace platform.

According to the Alvarez hypothesis, the mass extinction of the dinosaurs at the transition from the Cretaceous to the Paleogene Period, the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary), 65 million years ago was caused by an asteroid impact somewhere in the greater Caribbean Basin. The deeply buried Chicxulub crater is centered off the north coast of the peninsula near the town of Chicxulub. The now-famous "Ring of Cenotes" (visible in NASA imagery) outlines one of the shock-waves from this impact event in the rock of ~66 million years of age, which lies more than 1 km below the modern ground surface near the centre, with the rock above the impact strata all being younger in age. The presence of the crater has been determined first on the surface from the Ring of Cenotes, but also by geophysical methods, and direct drilling with recovery of the drill cores.

As is common in karst, underground river networks have formed by dissolution, and these have been explored and mapped by cave diving through sinkhole collapses, locally called cenotes. The whole of the Yucatán Peninsula is underlain by a density- stratified coastal aquifer system with a lens-shaped freshwater body floating on top of intruding saline water. The formation of caves (speleogenesis) within this coastal carbonate aquifer is principally associated with carbonate dissolution at the fresh-saline water contact within the aquifer. By 2008, the Quintana Roo Speleological Society (QRSS) reported more than of flooded cave passages within the limits of the Riviera Maya including the two longest underwater cave systems in the world of Sac Actun and Ox Bel Ha. These groundwater resources, accessed via the thousands of cenotes throughout the landscape, once supported the Maya civilizations and today remain the only natural sources of potable water in the area.

Such conditions occur notably where the bedrock is limestone or recently formed volcanic lava. Many anchialine pools are found on the coastlines of the island of Hawaii, and on the Yucatán Peninsula, where they are locally called cenotes, as well as Christmas Island. The Sailor's Hat crater created by an explosives test in 1965 is an anchialine pool. Ecological studies of anchialine pools frequently identify regionally rare and sometimes endemic species.

A ring of cenotes is associated with the largest semicircular feature, although its exact origin remains unclear. In 1978, geophysicists Glen Penfield and Antonio Camargo were working for the Mexican state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, as part of an airborne magnetic survey of the Gulf of Mexico north of the Yucatán Peninsula.Verschuur, 20–21. Penfield's job was to use geophysical data to scout possible locations for oil drilling.Bates.

Hildebrand interview. Hildebrand's team tested the samples, which clearly showed shock-metamorphic materials. A team of California researchers including Kevin Pope, Adriana Ocampo, and Charles Duller, surveying regional satellite images in 1996, found a cenote (sinkhole) ring centered on Chicxulub that matched the one Penfield saw earlier; the cenotes were thought to be caused by subsidence of bolide-weakened lithostratigraphy around the impact crater wall.Pope, Baines, et al.

Unlike the mainland cenotes which often link to underwater cave systems, there is little evidence of horizontal development in the Blue Hole. In 2012 Discovery Channel ranked the Great Blue Hole as number one on its list of "The 10 Most Amazing Places on Earth". In 2018, they featured a two-hour special titled Discovery Live: Into the Blue Hole featuring Erika Bergman, Fabien Cousteau and Richard Branson.

Backshall was seen diving live with Great Hammerhead sharks, tiger sharks, Bull sharks and reef sharks from the shark sanctuary of Bimini. 2018-2019, Backshall launched the project Expedition, which was televised by BBC2, UKTV, SBS, PBS and Discovery Asia. This involved ten expeditions to parts of the globe that had never been explored before. The team uncovered many miles of sunken cave passages in the cenotes of the Yucatan.

The Dos Ojos Cenotes are a popular snorkeling and cavern diving site receiving typically a hundred or more tourists per day. The majority of cavern dives are at . Most guided cavern dives include two dives in one day, each being 45 minutes long plus a 60-minute surface interval. It is possible to traverse underwater into another adjacent cenote called the "Bat Cave", which is also used for snorkeling.

Abîme are also known as pit caves in the U.S. and pot caves in England. They can also be called domepits, due to the way that looking up from below a dome can be seen and looking down from above a pit is seen. Blue holes are sinkholes that have filled with water and can occur on land or at sea. In Central America, they are called cenotes.

The location of the pyramid within the site is aligned at the intersection between four cenotes: the Sacred Cenote, Xtoloc, Kanjuyum, and Holtún. This alignment supports the position of the Temple of Kukulcán as an axis mundi.Tejero-Andrade, A., Argote-Espino, D., Cifuentes-Nava, G., Hernández-Quintero, E., Chávez, R.E., & García-Serrano, A. (2018). ‘Illuminating’ the interior of Kukulkan's Pyramid, Chichén Itzá, Mexico, by means of a non-conventional ERT geophysical survey.

There was very little evidence for obvious separation of residence between classes. This is mostly due to the residential center of Mayapan being located around the concentration of the water filled cenotes. Most residences are tandem structures made of several building within a separating wall. Many of these tandem structures include multiple residential buildings; the size of these residential buildings, relative to each other, suggests that some of them were for slaves.

The northern Maya lowlands, especially the northern portion of the Yucatán peninsula, are notable for their nearly complete lack of rivers (largely due to the absolute lack of topographic variation). Additionally, no lakes exist in the northern peninsula. The main source of water in this area is aquifers that are accessed through natural surface openings called cenotes. With an area of 8,264 km2 (3,191 sq mi), Lake Nicaragua is the largest lake in Mesoamerica.

Wetlands in Mexico are dynamic, complex and productive ecosystems. Six major wetland are registered in the RAMSAR Convention on Wetlands: Lagartos River (Yucatan Peninsula), Cuatrocienagas (Coahuila), La Encrucijada (Chiapas), Marsh Nayarit and Sinaloa, Centla Swamp (Tabasco), and the Colorado River (Baja California). Cenotes, sinkholes on the Yucatan peninsula that are filled with groundwater, host a number of unique species from bacteria, algae and protozoa (i.e. copepoda, cladocera and rotifera) to vertebrates (i.e.lepisosteus).

Scuba diving in a cenote Cenotes have attracted cavern and cave divers, and there are organized efforts to explore and map these underwater systems. They are public or private and sometimes considered as "National Natural Parks". Great care should be taken to avoid spoiling this fragile ecosystem when diving. In Mexico, the Quintana Roo Speleological Survey maintains a list of the longest and deepest water-filled and dry caves within the state boundaries.

The land outside of Mérida is covered with smaller scrub trees and former henequen fields. Almost no surface water exists, but several cenotes (underground springs and rivers) are found across the state. Mérida has a centro histórico typical of colonial Spanish cities. The street grid is based on odd-numbered streets running east/west and even-numbered streets running north/south, with Calles 60 and 61 bounding the "Plaza Grande" in the heart of the city.

The Cudgel of Hercules, a tall limestone rock in Poland (Pieskowa Skała Castle in the background) The Samulá cenote in Valladolid, Yucatán, Mexico Reflecting lake in the Luray Caverns of the northern Shenandoah Valley The White Cliffs of Dover About 10% of all sedimentary rocks are limestones. Limestone is partially soluble, especially in acid, and therefore forms many erosional landforms. These include limestone pavements, pot holes, cenotes, caves and gorges. Such erosion landscapes are known as karsts.

The Maya held the belief that cenotes or limestone sinkholes were portals to the underworld and sacrificed human beings and tossed them down the cenote to please the water god Chaac. The most notable example of this is the "Sacred Cenote" at Chichén Itzá. Extensive excavations have recovered the remains of 42 individuals, half of them under twenty years old. Only in the Post-Classic era did this practice become as frequent as in central Mexico.

Wildlife is dominated by bird and reptile species such as storks, pelicans, ducks, seagulls, lizards, turtles and water snakes. The Mountain region is in the north and east of the state consisting of two chains of low hills called the Dzibalchen and Sierra Alta. It also includes the savannah area and an area called Los Chenes, where natural wells called cenotes are common. This area is noted for its tropical hardwoods and the chicle or gum tree.

Svitiaz Lake is of karst origin; it was formed due to progradation of chalk rocks and subsequent huge cenotes. Nowadays the length of the lake is 9.3 km, its width is 4.8 km, and its surface is more than 27 square kilometers. The lake is fed by either artesian springs or precipitation. Water in Svitiaz is extremely transparent (in sunny weather a submerged white circle is visible to a depth of 8 m), clean and soft.

Among the rituals for the rain deities, the Yucatec Chʼa Cháak ceremony for asking rain centers on a ceremonial banquet for the rain deities. It includes four boys (one for each cardinal point) acting and chanting as frogs. Asking for rain and crops was also the purpose of 16th-century rituals at the cenotes, of Yucatán. Young men and women were lowered into these wells, so as to make them enter the realm of the rain deities.

Museo Nacional de Antropología leads two projects to study the Maya caves: Caves: Register of Prehispanic Cultures Evidence in Puuc Region with 1997 year and The cult of the cenotes in the center of the Yucatan. In 2008, a Mayan underground complex consisting of eleven temples, the 100-meter stone roads and flooded labyrinth of caves, was found on the Yucatan Peninsula. The most famous caves are the Maya: Balankanche, Loltun Cave, Actun Tunichil Muknal and Jolja'.

The landscape is somewhat varied, with mangrove swamps on parts of the North shore, sandy coves and beaches on the West coast. Most of the interior of the island is covered by various subtypes of xeric semi-deciduous limestone forests. Geologically, the island is basically made out of limestone, the erosion of which causes very jagged surfaces on exposed rocks (called diente de perro or dogtooth), and several sinkholes and cenotes. It has a large population of Rhinoceros Iguanas.

During the DEPTHX 2007 deployment, the vehicle was able to create 3-D maps of four cenotes in Sistema Zacatón in Tamaulipas, Mexico. This was the first autonomous system to explore and map a cavern. The mapping of Cenote Zacatón was particularly notable because its depth was previously unknown, as human divers had not been successful in attempts to reach the bottom. DEPTHX created the first map of the bottom of Zacatón, which has a depth of over .

During the archaeological explorations in Naharon cenote located southwest of Cancun, the remains of Eve of Naharon were discovered and reported to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) by Octavio del Río in 2000, as part of a first archaeological catalog of cenotes and caves in Quintana Roo. Later, the project grows to an archeological atlas that includes the rest of the cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula, a project that was co-directed by Arturo Gonzales, Carmen Rojas, and Octavio Del Río. González, director of the Desert Museum in Saltillo, Mexico said, "We don't know how [the people whose remains were found in the caves] arrived and whether they came from the Atlantic, the jungle, or inside the continent, but we believe these finds are the oldest yet to be found in the Americas and may influence our theories of how the first people arrived." González and his team spent a total of 4 years excavating the remains, and their discovery changed the mind of experts as to where the first Americans may have originated from.

Montezuma Well is geologically very similar to the sinkholes and cenotes found in Florida and the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico - that is, a limestone cave that has collapsed to expose its subterranean water source. The Well sits at the northern end of what is called the Verde Limestone formation, a distinct layer of travertine limestone - more than thick in some places - deposited beneath a series of shallow lakes that covered Arizona's central Verde Valley region between eight and two million years ago.

Trunk segment numbers increasing with age, maximum number examined was 36 segments'. The numerous legs are used as oars for swimming. The species is long, and found in cenotes close to the sea, with salty seawater lying beneath the fresh water, and grading smoothly from one type to the other (halocline). Stygobites are organisms found in subterranean groundwater habitats or anchialine caves, and characterised morphologically by loss or extreme reduction of eyes and pigment, frequently with attenuated bodies and/or appendages.

Milpa, or mixed, fields may have been cultivated when Mayapan was inhabited. There is evidence that the area around Mayapan was regularly used for slash-and-burn agriculture. Cenotes and underground limestone canals serve as the only source of freshwater in this area, making them essential to support agriculture. Researchers have suggested that Mayapan was an import/export center, and that they often traded luxury goods, such as cotton, salt, and honey, for products of obsidian and metal, which they would have forged.

Lake Bacalar (or Laguna de Bacalar) is a long and narrow lake in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is approximately 42 km long measured from north to south, and less than 2 km at its widest. The lake is renowned for its striking blue color and water clarity, partly the result of having a white limestone bottom. Like most bodies of water in the Yucatán peninsula, the lake is fed by underground rivers, whose regular open pools are cenotes.

Dos Ojos (from Spanish meaning "Two Eyes"; officially Sistema Dos Ojos) is part of a flooded cave system located north of Tulum, on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. The exploration of Dos Ojos began in 1987 and still continues. The surveyed extent of the cave system is and there are 28 known sinkhole entrances, which are locally called cenotes. In January 2018, a connection was found between Sistema Dos Ojos and Sistema Sac Actun.

During the Nohoch 1997 expedition, the of total explored cave passage mark was surpassed. In early 2007, Nohoch Nah Chich included 36 cenotes and had a recorded length of , when it was connected to, and subsumed into the longer Sistema Sac Actun by the Sac Actun Exploration Team (SAET).Quintana Roo Speleological Survey This portion of the system is now called the "Nohoch Nah Chich Historical section", where with also the greatest depth of the entire system was reached at "The Blue Abyss".

Due to the extreme karst nature of the whole peninsula, the northern half is devoid of rivers. Where lakes and swamps are present, the water is marshy and generally unpotable. Due to its coastal location, the whole of the peninsula is underlain by an extensive contiguous density stratified coastal aquifer, where a fresh water lens formed from meteoric water floats on top of intruding saline water from the coastal margins. The thousands of sinkholes known as cenotes throughout the region provide access to the groundwater system.

The Sacred Cenote The Yucatán Peninsula is a limestone plain, with no rivers or streams. The region is pockmarked with natural sinkholes, called cenotes, which expose the water table to the surface. One of the most impressive of these is the Cenote Sagrado, which is in diameter and surrounded by sheer cliffs that drop to the water table some below. The Cenote Sagrado was a place of pilgrimage for ancient Maya people who, according to ethnohistoric sources, would conduct sacrifices during times of drought.

Kabáh :: The Mayan Kingdom The emphasis placed on Chaac, the "Protector of the Harvest", both here and at other neighboring Puuc sites, stemmed from the scarcity of water in the region. There are no cenotes in this dryer, northern part of the Yucatán, so the Maya here had to depend solely on rain.Kabáh :: The Mayan Kingdom The site also has a number of other palaces, low stone buildings, and step-pyramid temples. While most is in the Puuc Maya style, some show Chenes elements.

The Great Blue Hole, a giant submarine sinkhole, near Ambergris Caye, Belize The following is a list of sinkholes, blue holes, dolines, crown holes cenotes, and pit caves. A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. Some are caused by karst processes—for example, the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes. Sinkholes vary in size from both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms.

The total number of caves in the Puuc region in the Yucatan is estimated in more than 2000, most of which is not open (the most extensive to date inventory has about 300 caves).Аrtdaily.org. Maya Caves and Caverns Registration Continues In compiled in the fight against idolatry Spanish chronicles 16th century mentioned 17 sites Maya caves and cenotes (of which found 9 caves).INAH. Templos subterráneos In the Relación de las cosas de Yucatán author Diego de Landa described Sacred Cenote.Гуляев. Древние Майя.

The assemblage referred to as "testate amoebae" is actually composed of several, unrelated groups of organisms. However, some features they all share that have been used to group them together include the presence of a test (regardless of its composition) and pseudopodia that do not anastomose. Testate amoebae can be found in most freshwater environments, including lakes, rivers, cenotes, as well as mires and soils. The strong and resistant nature of the tests allows them to be preserved long after the amoeba has died.

Flora and fauna are generally scarcer than in the open ocean; however, marine animals do thrive in caves. In caverns, one can spot mojarras, mollis, guppies, cat-fish, small eels and frogs. In the most secluded and darker cenotes, the fauna has evolved special features to live in an environment deprived of natural light. For example, many animals don't have pigmentation and they are often blind, so they are equipped with long feelers so that they can find food and make their way around in the dark.

Rubaksa tufa plug in Ethiopia Limestone pavement in Dent de Crolles, France The karstification of a landscape may result in a variety of large- or small-scale features both on the surface and beneath. On exposed surfaces, small features may include solution flutes (or rillenkarren), runnels, limestone pavement (clints and grikes), collectively called karren or lapiez. Medium-sized surface features may include sinkholes or cenotes (closed basins), vertical shafts, foibe (inverted funnel shaped sinkholes), disappearing streams, and reappearing springs. Large-scale features may include limestone pavements, poljes, and karst valleys.

Adriana C. Ocampo Uria (born January 5, 1955) is a Colombian planetary geologist and a Science Program Manager at NASA Headquarters. In 1970, Ocampo emigrated to California and completed her Master in Sciences at California State University, Northridge and finished her PhD at the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. During high school and graduate studies she worked that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she serves as the lead program executive. She and her colleagues were the first to identify a ring of cenotes using satellite images, the only surface impression of the buried Chicxulub crater.

Coe and Coe 1939, 377 Looking at the large sacbe connecting Kabah to Uxmal, natives told John Lloyd Stephens that ancient Mayan couriers used the sacbeob to deliver messages between large cities. At Ake in the Yucatán, several sacbeob lead directly to cenotes, which serve both as important religious sites and sources of clean water. At Coba, there are more than 50 sacbeob still visible today. Some researchers believe that some of the sacbeob were used to divide the population of about 55,000 people into at least four barrios or neighborhoods.

Not only is the underworld associated with the ancestors, but it also is understood as, where plants originate. In addition, the Maya's source of fresh water comes from underground pools in the porous limestone that makes up the Yucatán, called cenotes. These associations with water and plants further reinforce the notion of the jaguar as a god of fertility. The jaguar is further associated with vegetation and fertility by the Maya with what is known as the Waterlily jaguar, which is depicted as having water lilies sprouting from its head (Benson 1998:64-67).

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Sarah Street line lasted until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the United States ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas, until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. Postage Stamp issued in 1983. The last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and a mule-powered line in Celaya, survived until May 1954. In the 21st century, horsecars are still used to take visitors along the tour of the 3 cenotes from Chunkanán near Cuzamá Municipality in the state of Yucatán.

The Dos Ojos underwater cave system was featured in a 2002 IMAX film, Journey Into Amazing Caves, and the 2006 BBC/Discovery Channel series Planet Earth. Parts of the Hollywood 2005 movie The Cave were filmed in the Dos Ojos cave system. Water temperature is throughout the year, and the maximum depth near the Dos Ojos cenotes is approximately . The water is exceptionally clear as a result of rainwater filtered through limestone, and there being very little soil development in this region since the limestone is very pure.

Each pond is a basin- shaped limestone doline approximately deep and connected to the others by shallow watercourses called "races". The beds are covered with a fine silt layer and the floor of the third pond also contains a natural shallow cave. The ponds are located in a narrow band of native bush land, surrounded by cleared terrain. The landscape is characteristic of karst topography, shaped by the gradual dissolution of soluble limestone to form hollows and small caves, along with numerous large and relatively deep sinkholes (true cenotes).

Prufer and Kindon 2005: 28 Accordingly, these natural features were considered sacred and were sought out by Mesoamerican migrants looking for a new home.Brady and Prufer 2005: 368 A cave could be considered an axis mundi if it marked the center of a village (Brady and Ashmore 1999: 127). The Late Postclassic site of Mayapan incorporated several cenotes into its ceremonial groups and the Cenote Ch’en Mul is at the site core.Pugh 2005: 54 At Dos Pilas house platforms were often in front of cave entries and the tunnel went beneath the platform.

Xcaret pond Mayan ruins in Xcaret Xcaret Mexico Spectacular The Ecological Park is built in the same area as the archaeological site and has the same name, Xcaret. The land was originally purchased by a group of Mexican entrepreneurs, led by architect Miguel Quintana Pali. 5 hectares of the land was purchased in 1984. When he began to clear the land, he started uncovering cenotes, sinkholes formed by collapsed cave ceilings weakened by 3 million years of erosion from underground rivers running through them and flowing into the sea.

A limiting factor in Yucatán's economy was the poorness of the limestone soil, which could only support crops for two to three years with land cleared through slash and burn (swidden) agriculture. Access to water was a limiting factor on agriculture, with the limestone escarpment giving way in water filled sinkholes (cenotes), but rivers and streams were generally absent on the peninsula. Individuals had rights to land so long as they cleared and tilled them and when the soil was exhausted, they repeated the process. In general, the Indians lived in a dispersed pattern, which Spanish congregación or forced resettlement attempted to alter.

Posta Fibreno lake, Italy Sometimes referred to as tussocks, floatons, or suds, natural floating islands are composed of vegetation growing on a buoyant mat of plant roots or other organic detritus. Some cenotes in northern Mexico have natural floating islands. They typically occur when growths of cattails, bulrush, sedge, and reeds extend outward from the shoreline of a wetland area. As the water gets deeper the roots no longer reach the bottom, so they use the oxygen in their root mass for buoyancy, and the surrounding vegetation for support to retain their top-side-up orientation.

With help from archivists in Spain and fishermen, Luna began researching the entire fleet, recognizing that there had to be more losses than just the flagship. They were able to tag many wrecks without the use of modern technology, although only a few were from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Luna was involved in many projects, including the Manila Galleon off the coast of Baja California, Nevado de Toluca near Edomex's coastline, and Banco Chinchorro of Quintana Roo. She has spearheaded an atlas and registry for the study and preservation of the caves and cenotes of the Yucatán Peninsula, working on projects to conserve and protect Mexico's underwater and submerged heritage.

This is a popular spot among recreational scuba divers who are lured by the opportunity to dive in sometimes crystal-clear water and meet several species of fish, including midnight parrotfish, Caribbean reef shark, and other juvenile fish species. Other species of sharks, such as the bull shark and hammerheads, have been reported there, but are not regularly sighted. Usually, day trips to the Great Blue Hole are full-day trips from the coastal tourist communities in Belize. On-shore caves of similar formation, as large collapsed sinkholes, are well known in Belize and in the Yucatán Peninsula, where they are known as cenotes.

This was previously postulated in the early 1980s by the physicist Luis Walter Alvarez and his son the geologist Walter Alvarez. However, the only evidence to back this theory was the presence of iridium in the K/T boundary, since this element was found to be mainly present in asteroids and comets. While looking for water resources in Yucatán using satellite images in 1989 and 1990, Ocampo, former NASA archaeologist Kevin O. Pope, and Charles Duller, found cenotes related to this crater. Adriana Ocampo and her colleagues hypothesized that the cenote might be near the impact site, and their findings were later published in Nature in May 1991.

The Mayan landscape is a ritual topography, with landmarks such as mountains, wells and caves being assigned to specific ancestors and deities (see also Maya cave sites). Thus, the Tzotzil town of Zinacantan is surrounded by seven 'bathing places' of mountain-dwelling ancestors, with one of these sacred waterholes serving as the residence of the ancestors' 'nursemaids and laundresses'.Vogt 1976: 63 Part of these ritual takes place in or near such landmarks, in Yucatán, they also take place around karstic sinkholes (cenotes). Ritual was governed not only by the geographical lay-out of shrines and temples, but also by the projection of calendrical models onto the landscape.

The album is a concept album about a man stripped of humanity and left alone with nothing but the sea in front of him. He adapts in inhuman ways to survive the shock of human loss and total emotional tragedy, becoming something else entirely in the process. It has been greatly implied that these adaptations were in the form of transformation into a marine seastar like mutation, adopting their abilities of regeneration, and strange anatomic features, such as possessing two stomachs, and light sensing eye-like organs on the tips of their appendages. This story line was continued in the follow up 2011 EP, Cenotes, and is hinted at in the 2014 release, Minoans.

The southern part represented life, sustenance, and rebirth and often contained structures related to the continuity and daily function of the city-state, such as monuments depicting the noble lineages, or residential quarters, markets, etc. Between the two halves of the north/south axis was the plaza, often containing stelae resembling the world tree the Mesoamerican axis mundi, and a ballcourt which served as a crossing point between the two worlds. Some Mesoamericanists argue that in religious symbolism the Mesoamerican monumental architecture pyramids were mountains, stelae were trees, and wells, ballcourts and cenotes were caves that provided access to the underworld.Mary Miller and Karl Taube write about this in their introduction to "The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya" pp.

A major attraction throughout the Riviera Maya are coastal and reef aquatic activities dependent on the coastal water and the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (also known as the Belize Barrier Reef) which begins near Cancun and continues along the whole length of the Riviera Maya continuing southward to Guatemala. This barrier reef system is the second longest in the world. Activities at the most visited locations include jet-skiing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming in cenotes, swimming with dolphins, zip-lining, horse riding, sailing, and guided jungle tours. Archeology is also a big tourist draw in the area, including the popular archeological sites operated by the Instituto Nacional de Archeological such as Tulum on the coast, and Chichen Itza and Coba located some distance inland.

For more than ten years the system was extensively explored by dedicated cave divers starting from Cenote Nohoch Nah Chich. In 1987 Mike Madden of CEDAM International Dive Center established the CEDAM Cave Diving Team principally to conduct annual exploration projects to focus on cave exploration, while a number of cave research efforts were logistically supported, with contributions in the fields of karst hydrogeology, water chemistry, microbiology, cave ecology, and underwater archaeology. The technique of establishing jungle exploration camps at newly found cenotes and cave entrances of Sistema Nohoch Nah Chich was developed and refined during many cave exploration projects, thus allowing cave diving exploration effort to continue more efficiently at the edges of the known caves. The main camp of exploration became Cenote "Far Point Station", located from the coast, and further inland than Main Base Camp situated at the main Nohoch Nah Chich Cenote entrance.

The Quintana Roo Speleological Survey (QRSS) was established in 1990 for the safe exploration, survey and cartography of the underwater and dry caves and cenotes of Quintana Roo, Mexico, supported by the National Speleological Society. The survey principally acts as a data repository for explored sites within the state of Quintana Roo and distributes summary statistical tables through its webpage, which as of February, 2011 included 208 underwater cave systems with a total surveyed length of , and 50 caves above the water table with a total length of . The geographical area for the data archived in the QRSS is essentially the whole of the state of Quintana Roo, which extends along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, from Cancun and south to the capital of Chetumal situated on the border with Belize. The explosive urban and tourism based development within the Riviera Maya and the Costa Maya is leading to increasing and widespread environmental stresses.

Also, because human societies have always made use of water, sometimes the remains of structures that these societies built underwater still exist (such as the foundations of crannogs, bridges and harbours) when traces on dry land have been lost. As a result, underwater archaeological sites cover a vast range including: submerged indigenous sites and places where people once lived or visited that have been subsequently covered by water due to rising sea levels; wells, cenotes, wrecks (shipwrecks; aircraft); the remains of structures created in water (such as crannogs, bridges or harbours); other port-related structures; refuse or debris sites where people disposed of their waste, garbage and other items, such as ships, aircraft, munitions and machinery, by dumping into the water. Underwater archaeology is often complementary to archaeological research on terrestrial sites because the two are often linked by many and various elements including geographic, social, political, economic and other considerations. As a result, a study of an archaeological landscape can involve a multidisciplinary approach requiring the inclusion of many specialists from a variety of disciplines including prehistory, historical archaeology, maritime archaeology, and anthropology.