Jamaica Land History And Formation

Jamaica, with an area of 4,400 square miles, is the third largest Caribbean island. In fact, it is bigger than all the other Commonwealth Caribbean islands put together, and has just over half the total population. It is important to understand the Jamaica history how land formed and is divided into sections. It is important to note that before this there existed no commissioner of lands Jamaica and that most sub-divisions were done almost incorrectly.

Jamaica may be divided into three structural regions. First there is the Eastern section of the island. Jamaica land registration law was almost nonexistent after the emancipation in 1834 and the existing planters decided then to create a properly structured system. The eastern part is composed of many different igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks which were folded and uplifted at the end of Cretaceous times. Since then they have been severely eroded by many rivers, of which the largest are the Yallahs, Plantain Garden, Wag- water and Rio Grande.

It became quite common to find relatively cheap places such as Portland Jamaica land for sale. Today the landscape is one of sharp-crested ridges and deep, twisting valleys. Standing in the midst is the highest range of all, the Blue Mountains, where Blue Mountain Peak rises to 7,402 feet.

Most of the rest of the island is capped by thick layers of white limestone. In the centre and west this has been uplifted in stages to form several distinct plateau surfaces, though they have been considerably broken up by block faulting. Most of the land for sale in Jamaica was characterized by this phenomenon.

As limestone is soluble in water containing weak acids, it is eroded in a characteristic way. The result is called karst scenery, named after a district in Yugoslavia where the process has been studied most closely. All the typical karst features occur in Jamaica. Streams seldom remain on the surface for long but disappear underground to go through a maze of caverns, reappearing only in the deeper basins or at the edge of the limestone. Primarily again most property, real estate and land for sale Jamaica Caribbean existed on hilly terrain.

Enormous quantities of limestone have been dissolved away and in places, as shown in Diagram Sc, the underlying rocks have been exposed. Where limestone still remains, as it does over at least half the island, the landscape varies from place to place. The Cockpit Country is so broken up into deep, circular arenas and huge rocky buttresses that it is almost impenetrable and is therefore sparsely populated. Elsewhere erosion has produced a rolling upland countryside of rounded hills and hollows. Here conditions are better though much of the land has had to be left in pasture and scattered clumps of trees. In the early 1900’s a make shift Jamaica land information system was developed to document proper boundaries.

In general, poor soils and the difficulty of obtaining water make cultivation difficult. Dense agricultural settlement exists only where deep, rich soils have been deposited in large solution-basins. Examples are the Appleton Valley (i.e. the upper part of the Black River), St Thomas in the Vale (once the bed of a lake), Lluidas Vale, and the Queen of Spain’s Valley. These are shown on Maps 5b and Sd. There are many more smaller ones. Though it is not good for cultivation, limestone has other uses. It is a good stone for building and for road-making. More important, over much of its surface there lies a red clay containing bauxite5 now being worked by six of the worlds largest mining and metal producing companies.

Surrounding the highlands is a narrow coastal plain interrupted occasionally by spurs of highland reaching down to the sea. The largest lowland area is the southern plain which extends from Kingston, where it is known as the Liguanea Plain, westwards into the parish of Clarendon.

Along most of the western and northern shores the land descends sharply to narrow coral terraces which provide evidence of recent small uplifts. Elsewhere the plains are composed of mixed alluvial clays, sands and pebbles. Along parts of the coast the sea has deposited beach material in the form of spits and bars; for example, Palisadoes, and the bar enclosing Yallahs ponds. Despite all this it was not until the 1970’s when a proper registered title came into effect and protected lands in Jamaica become common place versus the old common law titles.