Serranilla Bank ( es, Isla Serranilla, Banco Serranilla and ''Placer de la Serranilla'') is a partially submerged

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes—deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock ...

, with small uninhabited islets, in the western

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexic ...

. It is situated about northeast of Punta Gorda,

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

, and roughly southwest of

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. The closest neighbouring land feature is

Bajo Nuevo Bank Bajo Nuevo Bank, also known as the Petrel Islands ( es, Bajo Nuevo, Islas Petrel), is a small, uninhabited reef with some small grass-covered islets, located in the western Caribbean Sea at , with a lighthouse on Low Cay at . The closest neighbo ...

, located to the east. Serranilla Bank was first shown on

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

maps in 1510. It is administered by

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

as part of the department of San Andrés and Providencia. An official map of Colombian borders, with treaty dates. The reef is subject to a sovereignty dispute involving

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. In 2012, in regards to Nicaraguan claims to the islands, the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...

(ICJ) upheld Colombia's sovereignty over the bank.

Geography

Serranilla Bank is a former

atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical oceans and seas where corals can gr ...

, now a mostly submerged

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate g ...

platform consisting of shallow

environments. It is about 40 km in length and 32 km in width, covering an area of over 1,200 km², almost entirely under water. Three small

cay A cay ( ), also spelled caye or key, is a small, low-elevation, sandy island on the surface of a coral reef. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, including in the Caribbean and on the Great ...

s and two rocks emerge above the water to form the bank's islands. These are West Breaker, Middle Cay, East Cay, Beacon Cay and Northeast Breaker.Sanandresislas
– description and photographs of Serranilla Bank. They are largely barren, with sparse vegetation of bushes and some trees. Many shipwrecks are located in its vicinity. The bank lacks

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

s and has minimal sediment cover. Accretion of the bank is not keeping up with sea level rise. The southeastern portion is covered mainly by

hardgrounds Carbonate hardgrounds are surfaces of synsedimentarily cemented carbonate layers that have been exposed on the seafloor (Wilson and Palmer, 1992). A hardground is essentially, then, a lithified seafloor. Ancient hardgrounds are found in limestone ...

, while the rest of the bank is mostly covered by thin

Halimeda ''Halimeda'' is a genus of green macroalgae. The algal body (thallus) is composed of calcified green segments. Calcium carbonate is deposited in its tissues, making it inedible to most herbivores. However one species, '' Halimeda tuna'', was desc ...

sediments. Beacon Cay is the largest

islet An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanent ...

in the Bank. It is overbuilt with small military facilities, which house a small rotating garrison of Colombian naval personnel. There is a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

on a

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

ledge in the southwest approach to the bank. It is a 33 m (108 ft) tall skeletal tower built atop a 3-storey crew residence. The lamp emits a focal plane beam of light as two white flashes every 20 seconds. The current lighthouse was first erected in 1982, and was reconstructed in May 2008 by the Colombian Ministry of Defence. It is currently maintained by the

Colombian Navy ) , colors= , march= ''"Viva Colombia, soy marinero"'' , mascot= , battles= Battle of Lake Maracaibo Thousand Days War (Civil war) Colombia-Peru War World War II Korean War Colombian Armed Conflict Operation Atalanta , notable_commanders= José ...

, and overseen by the state's Maritime Authority.

History

The Serranilla Bank was first shown on

maps in 1510 as '' Placer de la Serranilla''. It was mentioned by Louis-Michel Aury whose ship was shipwrecked on it in 1820. In later history it has been the subject of conflicting claims made by a number of

sovereign state A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a polity, political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defin ...

s. In most cases, the dispute stems from attempts by a state to expand its exclusive economic zone over the surrounding seas. Between 1982 and 1986, Colombia maintained a formal agreement with

which granted regulated fishing rights to Jamaican vessels within the

territorial waters The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potenti ...

of Serranilla Bank and nearby Bajo Nuevo Bank. In November 1993, the two states agreed upon a

maritime delimitation Boundary delimitation (or simply delimitation) is the drawing of boundaries, particularly of electoral precincts, states, counties or other municipalities.

lays claim to all the islands on its

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...

, covering an area of over 50,000 km² in the Caribbean Sea, including the Serranilla Bank and all islands associated with the San Andrés and Providencia archipelagoes. It has persistently pursued this claim against Colombia in the

(ICJ), filing cases in both 2001 and 2007. The

' claim was made in 1879 and 1880 under the

Guano Islands Act The Guano Islands Act (, enacted August 18, 1856, codified at §§ 1411-1419) is a United States federal law passed by the U.S. Congress that enables citizens of the United States to take possession, in the name of the United States, of unclai ...

by James W. Jennett. lists Serranilla Bank as an insular area under U.S. sovereignty. Most claims made by the U.S. over the guano islands in this region were officially renounced in a treaty with Colombia, dated September 1972. But whether or not Serranilla Bank was included in the agreement is disputed—there is no specific mention of the feature in the treaty and, as per Article 7 of the said treaty, only matters specifically mentioned in the document are subject to it. According to other records, as well as claims made within the ICJ, Colombia is recognised by the United States as having varying degrees of sovereignty over Serranilla Bank through the treaty of 1972, which took effect in September 1981. The U.S. considers the reef to be an unorganized,

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

United States territory In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters (around islands or continental tracts). The United States asserts sovereign rights for ...

claims Serranilla Bank as part of its national territory in Article 10 of its

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

.Republic of Honduras: Political Constitution of 1982 through 2005 reforms
/ref> In 1986, it agreed upon a

maritime boundary A maritime boundary is a conceptual division of the Earth's water surface areas using physiographic or geopolitical criteria. As such, it usually bounds areas of exclusive national rights over mineral and biological resources,VLIZ Maritime Boun ...

demarcation with Colombia that excluded Honduras of any control over the bank or its surrounding waters. The

ratification Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent that lacked the authority to bind the principal legally. Ratification defines the international act in which a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties inten ...

of this boundary on 20 December 1999 proved to be controversial within Honduras, as it ensured that the state implicitly recognised Colombia's sovereignty over the claimed territory. Nicaragua, which has not resolved its maritime borders with Honduras or Colombia, disputed Honduras' legal right to hand over these areas before the ICJ.Nicaragua-Honduras Territorial Dispute
De Mar, Rebecca.

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

, June 2002. Despite the agreement with Colombia, however, the Honduran government has yet to officially renounce the claim in the Constitution.

Notable fauna

In 1952, Serranilla bank was the site of the last sighting of the now extinct

Caribbean monk seal The Caribbean monk seal (''Neomonachus tropicalis''), also known as the West Indian seal or sea wolf, was a species of seal native to the Caribbean which is now believed to be extinct. The main predators of Caribbean monk seals were sharks and h ...

References

External links

* – aerial image of Serranilla Bank * Photos of the islands on

Panoramio Panoramio was a geo-located tagging, photo sharing mashup active between 2005 and 2016. Photos uploaded to the site were accessible as a layer in Google Earth and Google Maps. The site's goal was to allow Google Earth users to learn more about ...

{{Authority control Atolls of the North Atlantic Ocean Atolls of Colombia Atolls of the United States Caribbean islands of Colombia Disputed islands Insular areas of the United States International territorial disputes of the United States Caribbean islands claimed under the Guano Islands Act Islands of the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands of the West Caribbean Reefs of the Atlantic Ocean Territorial disputes of Colombia Territorial disputes of Honduras Territorial disputes of Nicaragua Uninhabited Caribbean islands of the United States Uninhabited islands of Colombia Uninhabited islands of Honduras Uninhabited islands of Nicaragua Colombia–Honduras relations Colombia–United States relations Colombia–Nicaragua relations

Geography

History

Notable fauna

See also

References

External links