The Venezuelan Sea: its place in the scheme of things

• The visit to the museum proper starts at the first exhibition hall, to the left of the entrance, and is called "El mar venezolano: Una visión espacial" (The Venezuelan Sea: its place in the scheme of things). The first photographs show some aspects of the oceanographic characteristics of the Caribbean Sea: summer and winter temperature ranges (yellow indicates the areas where there are high temperatures in both seasons) and the extension of chlorophyllous pigments (indicators of the sea's primary production, i.e. its wealth) along Venezuela's coasts.
• In the photograph of the earth, the yellow areas next to the western coasts of the continents (California and Peru in America and the coasts of the Sahara and Kalahari deserts in Africa) indicate the presence of upwelling currents in tropical and subtropical latitudes, which are very rich in fish (anchovies in Peru; hake and other species in Africa). The northern and southern hemispheres (cold) are also highly productive (herring, cod, sardines). It is worth noting that, in tropical and subtropical zones, the areas that are rich in fish are off desert areas on land (Atacama Desert in South America, the Sahara in Africa), this is due to the fact that the areas of upwelling currents are caused by the trade winds, which create high-pressure zones and, therefore, scant rainfall, except when, for reasons that are unknown, the trades cease to blow and the high and low pressure zones are reversed, as happens in Peru with the phenomenon known as El Niño, so called because it coincides with Christmas time (summertime in the southern hemisphere).
• The picture of the American continent shows how isolated it is from the rest of the emerged lands, which form a single block: Asia, Europe and Africa (the orbis terrarum of the ancient world). This isolation explains its biogeographical and historical singularity and why it was given the name of the New World.
• Then comes a picture of the Los Roques Archipelago National Park that shows its singular structure of a central lagoon surrounded by cays or more-or-less elongated islets, reminiscent of the archipelagos of atolls or submerged volcanoes in the Indo-Pacific Ocean.
• On the wall along one side, there is general diagram of the submarine topography of Venezuela's coasts, highlighting the position and characteristics of the basin of the Cariaco Deep, anoxic (without oxygen) from a depth of 500 meters; the large area of the northeastern continental platform and the deeps of up to more than 3,000 between the continental coast and the ocean islands (Los Roques, La Orchila, Aves de Barlovento, and Aves de Sotovento).
• Next comes a photograph of Margarita Island, which is compared to an 18th century map of the island.

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