Lucayan Archipelago
| Lucayan Archipelago Lucayan Archipel (Haitian Creole) |
|
|---|---|
| Antilles | |
 Location within the Caribbean |
|
| Region | Caribbean |
| Countries and territories | |
| Area | |
| • Total | 14,308 km2 (5,524 sq mi) |
| Population (2016) | |
| • Total | 443,000 |
| • Density | 24.6/km2 (64/sq mi) |
| Demonym(s) | Bahamian, Turks Islander, Caicos Islander |
| Time zone | EST (UTC−5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC−4) |
The Lucayan Archipelago, also known as the Bahama Archipelago, is an island group comprising the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the British Overseas Territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The archipelago is in the western North Atlantic Ocean, north of the Antilles, and east and southeast of Florida.
William Keegan writes that the Bahama archipelago includes the territories of both the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, adding: "Modern political considerations aside, the islands form a single archipelago with common geological, ecological, and cultural roots." Because the two nations of the Lucayan Archipelago do not border the Caribbean Sea, they are technically part of the West Indies but not the Caribbean. They are, however, often grouped with the Caribbean nations for convenience.
The leaders of the Bahamas as well as Turks and Caicos Islands discussed the possibility of forming a federation in 2010.
The Lucayan Archipelago was originally formed by the rifting of Pangea, the Super-continent, which resulted in the opening of North Atlantic basin. The rifting of Pangea was accompanied by volcanic activity due to the nature of the colliding North American and Caribbean plates. The collisions, commonly subduction zones where one plate is pulled under the other, formed the lower layer, which is commonly referred to as the basement rocks upon which the Bahamian islands now reside. Evidence of the volcanic activity is found in the tilted fault blocks of Jurassic volcaniclastics which are commonly found in the Florida Straits area (Vacher 95). In the southern region of the Bahamas, the basement rocks are oceanic crust, showing that the area was not a transitional region during the opening of the North Atlantic basin.
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