Cargados Carajos Shoals
- ISS002-E-10053
- 25 July 2001
- 05:45 UTC
The Cargados Carajos Shoals (sometimes referred to as the Saint Brandon Shoals or Islets), is a large, mostly submerged, carbonate platform located 395 km northeast from Mauritius (see panoramic image). The emergent parts of the formation comprise a great, 100 km long, crescent-shaped expanse of reef and algal ridge covering around 190 km² (see mosaic image). On the windward (west) side the reef ridge protects a large area of shallow water that averages less than 20 m in depth. Within this semi-lagoon are numerous sandbanks and small sand cays.
Its 22 islets give this dependent territory of Mauritius a total land area of 1.32 km². The far northern end of the Cargados Carajos shoals are flanked by the two outlying islands of Siren Island and North Island. On the northern tip of the reef are the small islets of Île Raphael. Located on the western side of the Cargados Carajos shoals, some 22 km from the breakers of the eastern reefs are a string of small islets that form a loose boundary to the western margins of the lagoon — in this image they are from right to left: Frigate Island, Perle (Pearl) Island and the Pearl Breaker reef. Isolated around 20 km north of the shoals lies the outlying reef-fringed island of Albatross.
The islets of the Cargados Carajos shoals are regionally important for their seabird populations and Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas) nesting sites.
image: earth sciences and image analysis laboratory, nasa johnson space center
