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Navassa Island: A Photographic Tour

Navassa Island Home
Explore Navassa
take a Tour:
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or Explore:
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Navassa map
Navassa Location Map


Related Links:
Expedition to Navassa
Center for Marine Conservation
The Quest Society
conservation and education
Flora of Navassa
New York Botanical Gardens
Navassa Island
US Dept of Interior - Office of Insular Affairs

Navassa - National Wildlife Refuge - PDF document
[get Acrobat PDF Reader]
US Dept of Interior -
Fish & Wildlife Service
"Galapagos of the Caribbean"
The Expedition

  regional location map
Navassa is an uninhabited, 5 km² island in the Caribbean Sea between Haiti and Jamaica administered by the U.S. Department of Interior. The USGS participated in two science expeditions to Navassa organized by the Center for Marine Conservation. The first team of 8 scientists spent July 24 to August 5, 1998 on Navassa. The second expedition occurred between April 29 and May 12, 1999 and was supported by a vessel, film crew and explorers from the Quest, an Australian adventure group and film production enterprise.

The team conducted an inventory of natural resources of the island for the Department of Interior, Office of Insular Affairs. Preliminary results of the inventories have increased the number of terrestrial species known to the island from 150 to more than 650. On the last day of the first trip, the group found a single living specimen of the palm tree Pseudopheonix sargentti saonae var. navassana. Further exploration during the second trip proved the specimen to be the last living example of this endemic palm, which had been common on the island as late as 1928.

National Wildlife Refuge Status

The information collected during these expeditions was instrumental in the decision in 1999 to make Navassa a National Wildlife Refuge, under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The refuge was established to preserve and protect the coral reef ecosystems and the marine environment, to restore and enhance native wildlife and plants, and to provide opportunities for wildlife research. This refuge is closed to the public.

Explore Navassa
take a Tour:
geology | biology | history
or Explore:
fly | sail | hike | scuba


Navassa from the air: Aerial view of Navassa, looking from west to east. North is to the left. The Research Vessel Quest is visible at lower right.
photographic map of Navassa Island
Coastal and Marine Geology Program > Center for Coastal Geology > Navassa Island

U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Coastal and Marine Geology Program
http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/navassa/index.html
Maintaned by Trent Faust - Webmaster
Updated December 12, 2002 @ 10:41 AM (THF)