scholarly journals Nineteenth Century Navies Role in Developing an understanding of the Pacific Coast of Central America

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Jorge León Sáenz

Navies, apart from their traditional use by nations as instruments for the projection of power, for the protection of maritime interests and for exercising peacekeeping and war activities, have also had an important role in developing scientific and technical knowledge.  The survey work undertaken by various navies since the 18th century, has in particular been of great benefit in improving and making navigation safer on high seas and coasts, through the provision of maritime charts and sailing directions, to all mariners.  The technical efforts and geopolitical interests behind those efforts in the 19th century and how they affected the maritime trade and foreign affairs of the Central American countries located on the Pacific Coast are the subject of this study.

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1889-1903 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Brizuela ◽  
A. Armigliato ◽  
S. Tinti

Abstract. Central America (CA), from Guatemala to Panama, has been struck by at least 52 tsunamis between 1539 and 2013, and in the extended region from Mexico to northern Peru (denoted as ECA, Extended Central America in this paper) the number of recorded tsunamis in the same time span is more than 100, most of which were triggered by earthquakes located in the Middle American Trench that runs parallel to the Pacific coast. The most severe event in the catalogue is the tsunami that occurred on 2 September 1992 off Nicaragua, with run-up measured in the range of 5–10 m in several places along the Nicaraguan coast. The aim of this paper is to assess the tsunami hazard on the Pacific coast of this extended region, and to this purpose a hybrid probabilistic-deterministic analysis is performed, that is adequate for tsunamis generated by earthquakes. More specifically, the probabilistic approach is used to compute the Gutenberg–Richter coefficients of the main seismic tsunamigenic zones of the area and to estimate the annual rate of occurrence of tsunamigenic earthquakes and their corresponding return period. The output of the probabilistic part of the method is taken as input by the deterministic part, which is applied to calculate the tsunami run-up distribution along the coast.


Author(s):  
Maksim Anisimov

Heinrich Gross was a diplomat of the Empress of Russia Elizabeth Petrovna, a foreigner on the Russian service who held some of the most important diplomatic posts of her reign. As the head of Russian diplomatic missions in European countries, he was an immediate participant in the rupture of both Franco-Russian and Russo-Prussian diplomatic relations and witnessed the beginning of the Seven Years' War, while in the capital of Saxony, besieged by Prussian troops. After that H. Gross was one of the members of the collective leadership of the Russian Collegium of Foreign Affairs. So far there is only one biographic essay about him written in the 19th century. The aims of this article are threefold. Using both published foreign affairs-related documentation and diplomatic documents stored in the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire, it attempts to systematize the materials of the biography of this important participant in international events. It also seeks to assess his professional qualities and get valuable insight into his role both in the major events of European politics and in the implementation of the foreign policy of the Russian Empire in the mid-18th century. Moreover, the account of the diplomatic career of H. Gross presented in this essay aims to generate genuine interest among researchers in the personality and professional activities of one of the most brilliant Russian diplomats of the Enlightenment Era.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo G. Hidalgo ◽  
Eric J. Alfaro ◽  
Franklin Hernández-Castro ◽  
Paula M. Pérez-Briceño

<p>Tropical cyclones are one of the most important causes of disasters in Central America. Using historical (1970–2010) tracks of cyclones in the Caribbean and Pacific basin, we identify critical path locations where these low-pressure systems cause the highest number of floods in a set of 88 precipitation stations in the region. Results show that tropical cyclones from the Caribbean and Pacific basin produce a large number of indirect impacts on the Pacific slope of the Central American isthmus. Although the direct impact of a tropical cyclone usually results in devastation in the affected region, the indirect effects are more common and sometimes equally severe. In fact, the storm does not need to be an intense hurricane to cause considerable impacts and damage. The location of even a lower intensity storm in critical positions of the oceanic basin can result in destructive indirect impacts in Central America. The identification of critical positions can be used for emergency agencies in the region to issue alerts of possible flooding and catastrophic events.</p>


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 3168
Author(s):  
Alejandra Morales Mérida ◽  
Aude Helier ◽  
Adriana A. Cortés-Gómez ◽  
Marc Girondot

In marine turtles, sex is determined during a precise period during incubation: males are produced at lower temperatures and females at higher temperatures, a phenomenon called temperature-dependent sex determination. Nest temperature depends on many factors, including solar radiation. Albedo is the measure of the proportion of reflected solar radiation, and in terms of sand color, black sand absorbs the most energy, while white sand reflects more solar radiation. Based on this observation, darker sand beaches with higher temperatures should produce more females. As marine turtles show a high degree of philopatry, including natal homing, dark beaches should also produce more female hatchlings that return to nest when mature. When sand color is heterogeneous in a region, we hypothesize that darker beaches would have the most nests. Nevertheless, the high incubation temperature on beaches with a low albedo may result in low hatching success. Using Google Earth images and the SWOT database of nesting olive ridleys (Lepidochelys olivacea) in the Pacific coast of Mexico and Central America, we modeled sand color and nesting activity to test the hypothesis that darker beaches host larger concentrations of females because of feminization on darker beaches and female philopatry. We found the opposite result: the lower hatching success at beaches with a lower albedo could be the main driver of nesting activity heterogeneity for olive ridleys in Central America.


1969 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-40
Author(s):  
George N. Wolcott

The spiraea aphid, Aphis spiraecola Patch, which previous to 1924 was known only on species of Spiraea in the northern United States, in that year appeared in mass infestations on citrus trees in Florida and Cuba, causing enormous damage by distorting and resetting the young growth. By 1926 it had spread to Puerto Rico, attacking not only various endemic trees and plants, but being implicated in the transmission of a new virus disease of papaya. By 1928, it was reported on citrus from Honduras in Central America, and it has since dispersed to Costa Rica, and on a great variety of hosts to California, Oregon, and Washington on the Pacific Coast.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 2763-2778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro D. Barrera Crespo ◽  
Erik Mosselman ◽  
Alessio Giardino ◽  
Anke Becker ◽  
Willem Ottevanger ◽  
...  

Abstract. The equatorial Daule and Babahoyo rivers meet and combine into the tidal Guayas River, which flows into the largest estuary on the Pacific coast of South America. The city of Guayaquil, located along the Guayas, is the main port of Ecuador but, at the same time, the planet's fourth most vulnerable city to future flooding due to climate change. Sedimentation, which has increased in recent years, is seen as one of the factors contributing to the risk of flooding. The cause of this sedimentation is the subject of the current research. We used the process-based Delft3D FM model to assess the dominant processes in the river and the effects that past interventions along the river and its estuary have had on the overall sediment budget. Additionally, a simulation including sea level rise was used in order to understand the possible future impact of climate change on the sediment budget. Results indicate an increase in tidal asymmetry due to land reclamation and a decrease in episodic flushing by river floods due to upstream dam construction. These processes have induced an increased import of marine sediment potentially responsible for the observed sedimentation. This is in contrast with the local perception of the problem, which ascribes sedimentation to deforestation in the upper catchment. Only the deposition of silt and clay in connected stagnant water bodies could perhaps be ascribed to upstream deforestation.


Zootaxa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3178 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
TORE HØISÆTER

The Panamic biogeographic province has long been thought to harbour a rich pyramidellid fauna. In the compilation of Keen (1971) the family is second only to the Turridae in being the most speciose gastropod family in the region, and no less than 350 species are listed. However a number of these have later been recognized to be synonyms, and in the update of the compilation by Skoglund (2002) the number of pyramidellids was reduced to 258.


Author(s):  
Anno Faubel ◽  
Ronald Sluys ◽  
David G. Reid

A commensal relationship is described between the polyclad flatworm Paraprostatum echinolittorinae Faubel & Sluys gen. et sp. nov. and gastropod molluscs living on the Pacific coast of central America. Although the worms are relatively large in comparison with their hosts, the latter sustained no apparent damage. Considering the fact that the molluscs live in the upper eulittoral zone and littoral fringe of the shore, it is unlikely that the polyclads could survive for long outside the hosts. Diagnostic characters for the new genus and species are a long penial stylet joined to the proximal vesicle and absence of Lang's vesicle. It is pointed out that Aprostatum clippertoni Bock, 1913 and A. longipenis (Kato, 1943) have been incorrectly transferred to the genus Euplana Girard, 1893 and that Discoplana malagensis Doignon, Artois & Deheyn, 2003 should be transferred to the genus Ilyella Faubel, 1983.


Author(s):  
Robinson Herrera

Far from monolithic, the seven Central American countries—Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama—each have unique cultural traditions and historical trajectories. Their different geographies, while not deterministic in any facile manner, influenced their development in ways that continue to shape their national characteristics. The cataclysmic 16th-century Spanish Conquest introduced new peoples and cultural traditions to the region. African slaves, primarily from the sub-Saharan region, accompanied the first Spanish ventures, and, later, as the colonies consolidated and grew, peoples of African descent, both enslaved and free, became a part of the area’s economic and cultural landscape. Starting in the late 18th century, African peoples from the Caribbean—whether forcefully exiled or as a result of searching for economic opportunities—traveled to Central America. Despite a contemporary collective historical amnesia that imagines Africans isolated in specific regions, namely the Caribbean coast, peoples of African descent can be found throughout the Central American nations. Rather than addressing each country, a thematic approach that focuses on the Spanish Conquest, slavery, emancipation, the ethnogenesis of African connected cultures, the historical erasure of Africans, and the contributions of peoples of African descent helps to understand the complex ways that peoples of African descent have impacted the history of modern Central America. For far from isolated to small populations along the Caribbean, the African presence can be discerned throughout the region, even in places often perceived as entirely devoid of its influence.


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