Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...
. The island lies off the northeastern coast of
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
and sits on the
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 ...
The original name for the island in the Arawaks' language was which meant "Land of the Hummingbird".
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
renamed it ('The Island of the
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...
'), fulfilling a vow he had made before setting out on his third voyage. This has since been shortened to ''Trinidad''.
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
encountered the islands on his third voyage on 31 July 1498. The island remained Spanish until 1797, but it was largely settled by French colonists from the French Caribbean, especially
Martinique
Martinique ( , ; gcf, label= Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in ...
.Besson, Gerard (2000-08-27). "Land of Beginnings – A historical digest", ''Newsday Newspaper''. In 1889 the two islands became a single British Crown colony. Trinidad and Tobago was granted self-governance in 1958 and independence from the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
in August 1962. and eventually became a republic on August 1976.
Geography
Major landforms include the hills of the
Northern
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a r ...
,
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known a ...
Nariva
Nariva is a county in Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in eastern Trinidad, south of Saint Andrew County and north of Mayaro County, to the west by Victoria County and to the northwest by Saint George County. The southern boundary of the co ...
and Oropouche Swamps, and the Caroni and Naparima Plains. Major river systems include the Caroni, North and South Oropouche and Ortoire Rivers. There are many other natural landforms such as beaches and waterfalls.
Trinidad has two seasons per the calendar year: the rainy season and the dry season.
El Cerro del Aripo
El Cerro del Aripo, at , is the highest point in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is part of the Aripo Massif and is located in the Northern Range on the island of Trinidad, northeast of the town of Arima.
El Cerro del Aripo lies on the b ...
, at 940 metres (3,084 ft), is the highest point in Trinidad. It is part of the Aripo Massif and is located in the Northern Range on the island, northeast of the town of
Arima
Arima, officially The Royal Chartered Borough of Arima is the easternmost and second largest in area of the three boroughs of Trinidad and Tobago. It is geographically adjacent to Sangre Grande and Arouca at the south central foothills of ...
.
Demographics
As of the 2011 Trinidad and Tobago Census, the population was 35.43%
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
, 34.22% African, 7.66% mixed African and East Indian, and 15.16% other mixed. Venezuela has also had a great impact on Trinidad's culture, such as introducing the music style parang to the island. Many groups overlap. For example, a "
Dougla
Dougla people (plural ''Douglas'') are Caribbean people who are of mixed African and Indian descent. The word ''Dougla'' (also Dugla or Dogla) is used throughout the Dutch and English-speaking Caribbean.
Definition
The word ''Dougla'' origin ...
" is a person of African and East Indian descent who may identify as being part of either group.
Culture
There are multiple festivals featuring the music of the Caribbean and the steelpan, which originated in Trinidad and is the country's national instrument. These festivals include the world-renowned Carnival, J'ouvert, and Panorama, the national steel pan competition. Trinidad also has many public holidays, such as
Indian Arrival Day
Indian Arrival Day is a holiday celebrated on various days in the nations of the Caribbean, Fiji, South Africa, and Mauritius, commemorating the arrival of people from the Indian subcontinent to their respective nations as indentured labours br ...
Easter
Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samue ...
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
Temple in the Sea
The Temple in the Sea, also known as the Siewdass Sadhu mandir, is a Hindu mandir in Waterloo, Carapichaima, Trinidad and Tobago. Sewdass Sadhu constructed the original temple in the Gulf of Paria in 1952. The temple was reconstructed by Randal R ...
.
Zoology
The island of Trinidad has a rich biodiversity. The fauna is overwhelmingly of South American origin. There are about 100 species of mammals including the
Guyanese red howler
The Guyanan red howler (''Alouatta macconnelli'') is a species of howler monkey, a type of New World monkey, native to Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad, French Guiana, Venezuela and Brazil.
References
Guyanan red howler
Mammals of the Caribbea ...
Trinidad piping-guan
The Trinidad piping guan (''Pipile pipile'') locally known as the pawi, is a bird in the chachalaca, guan and curassow family Cracidae, endemic to the island of Trinidad. It is a large bird, somewhat resembling a turkey in appearance, and resea ...
. Reptiles are well represented, with about 92 recorded species including the largest species of snake in the world, the
green anaconda
The green anaconda (''Eunectes murinus''), also known as the giant Emerald anaconda, common anaconda, common water boa or sucuri, is a boa species found in South America. It is the heaviest and one of the longest known extant snake species. L ...
, the spectacled caiman, and one of the largest lizards in the Americas, the green iguana. Trinidad is also the largest leatherback turtle nesting site in the western hemisphere; they nest on Trinidad's eastern and northern beaches. There are 37 recorded frog species, including the tiny El Tucuche golden tree frog, Trinidad poison frog, and the more widespread huge cane toad. About 43 species of freshwater fish are known from Trinidad, including the well known guppy. It is estimated that there are at least 80,000 arthropods, and at least 600 species of butterflies.
The William Beebe Tropical Research Station (founded by William Beebe), also known as Simla, lies north of
Arima
Arima, officially The Royal Chartered Borough of Arima is the easternmost and second largest in area of the three boroughs of Trinidad and Tobago. It is geographically adjacent to Sangre Grande and Arouca at the south central foothills of ...
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...
. It is one of the leading gas-based export centers in the world, being one of the top five exporters of liquefied natural gas and the largest onshore natural gas well was recently discovered in southern Trinidad. This has allowed Trinidad to capitalize on the biggest mineral reserves within its territories. It is an oil-rich country and stable economically.
Geology
The Venezuela
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago.
The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
Basin is a subsidence basin formed between the Caribbean and South American plates, and is bounded on the north by the coast ranges of Venezuela and the Northern Range of Trinidad, and bounded on the south by the
Guayana Shield
The Guiana Shield (french: Plateau des Guyanes, Bouclier guyanais; nl, Hoogland van Guyana, Guianaschild; pt, Planalto das Guianas, Escudo das Guianas; es, Escudo guayanés) is one of the three cratons of the South American Plate. It is a 1 ...
. This Guayana shield supplied fine-grained clastic
sediments
Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sa ...
, which with the subsidence, formed a regional negative
gravity anomaly
The gravity anomaly at a location on the Earth's surface is the difference between the observed value of gravity and the value predicted by a theoretical model. If the Earth were an ideal oblate spheroid of uniform density, then the gravity me ...
and growth faults.Bane & Chanpong, p. 387. Oil and gas discoveries from the
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Group include Teak (1968), Samaan (1971), Poui (1972) and Galeota.Woodside, P.R., The Petroleum Geology of Trinidad and Tobago, 1981, USGS Report 81-660, Washington: US Dept. of the Interior, pp. 2 and 25 These fields are mainly faulted
anticline
In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is t ...
traps producing from depths of subsea, with Teak possessing a hydrocarbon column almost thick.
The Northern Range is an Upper Jurassic-
Lower Cretaceous
Lower may refer to:
* Lower (surname)
* Lower Township, New Jersey
*Lower Receiver (firearms)
* Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England
See also
*Nizhny
Nizhny (russian: Ни́жний; masculine), Nizhnyaya (; feminine), or Nizhneye (russian: Н� ...
range of metamorphic rocks striking east and dipping south. The range's southern boundary is marked by a fault extending from the
El Pilar Fault System
The El Pilar Fault System ( es, Falla El Pilar) is a complex of geological faults located in state of Sucre in northern Venezuela. The fault system is of right-lateral strike-slip
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in ...
in Venezuela. South of this fault is the Northern Basin, or Caroni Syncline, consisting of
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago.
The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...
s
unconformably
An unconformity is a buried erosional or non-depositional surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval ...
overlying Jurassic and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks. South of this basin is the Central Range, consisting of
Upper Tertiary
The Neogene ( ), informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period Mya. ...
sedimentary rocks lying unconformably atop Lower Eocene and
Paleocene
The Paleocene, ( ) or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name is a combination of the Ancient Greek ''pala ...
Lower Tertiary
The Paleogene ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning ...
beds.
Hydrocarbon bearing anticlines include those associated with
Pitch Lake
The Pitch Lake is the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world, estimated to contain 10 million tons. It is located in La Brea in southwest Trinidad, within the Siparia Regional Corporation. The lake covers about 100 acres (0.405 squ ...
, Forest Reserve, Point Fortin, Penal, Barrackpore, and Balata Fields. The Los Bajos Fault is a
wrench fault
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...
, with Lower Pliocene displacement of 6.51 miles, bordered on the north by the Siparia syncline, and on the south by the Erin syncline. Finally, the Southern Range consists of anticlinal folds, including the Rock Dome-Herrera anticline and the Moruga-West Field. East of this Rock Dome are
en echelon
An echelon formation () is a (usually military) formation in which its units are arranged diagonally. Each unit is stationed behind and to the right (a "right echelon"), or behind and to the left ("left echelon"), of the unit ahead. The name of ...
folds containing the Lizard Springs Field. South of these folds is another fold trend containing the Moruga-East, Guayaguayare, Beach, and Galeota Fields. South of the Morne Diablo-Quinam Erin Field westward is a strongly folded anticline associated with shale
diapirism
A diapir (; , ) is a type of igneous intrusion in which a more mobile and ductily deformable material is forced into brittle overlying rocks. Depending on the tectonic environment, diapirs can range from idealized mushroom-shaped Rayleigh–T ...
, which extends west southwestward to the Pedernales Field in southeast Venezuela. The northeast portion of the Southern Range separates into a northern trend containing the Lizard Springs, Navette, and Mayaro Fields, while the southern trend contains the Beach Field.
Recreation
Trinidad is considered one of the best places in the world to catch Atlantic tarpon.
See also
*
Culture of Trinidad and Tobago The culture of Trinidad and Tobago reflects the influence of Indian-South Asian, African, Indigenous, European, Chinese, North American, Latino, and Arab cultures. The histories of Trinidad and Tobago are different. There are differences in the cult ...
Trinidad and Tobago literature
Trinidad and Tobago literature has its roots in oral storytelling among African slaves, the European literary roots of the French creoles and in the religious and folk tales of the Indian indentured immigrants. It blossomed in the 20th century ...
* Bane, S.C., and Chanpong, R.R. (1980) "Geology and Development of the Teak Oil Field, Trinidad, West Indies", in ''Giant Oil and Gas Fields of the Decade: 1968–1978'', AAPG Memoir 30, Tulsa: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, .