As wildlife and habitat have disappeared from the region, Cuba’s importance as an ecological bastion has steadily risen. As one scientist put it, Cuba is the “biological superpower” of the Caribbean. The island has the largest tracts of untouched rain forest, unspoiled reefs and intact wetlands in the Caribbean islands. Cuba also is home to many unique, or endemic, species, including the solenodon, a chubby insectivore that looks rather like a giant shrew, and the bee hummingbird, the world’s smallest bird, weighing less than a penny.

Cuba: An Overview of its Geology, Hydrocarbon Systems and
Petroleum Industry (2002)
Petroleum production in Cuba dates from 1881 when light oil production was established
from Motembo Field in the central part of the island. Cuba currently produces an all-time
record of approximately 50,000 bo/d of predominantly heavy crude and 55 MMcf/d of
associated natural gas, mainly from a series of fields along a relatively small, 100km
stretch of the northern coastline. This limited area of oil and gas production has more to do
with ease of logistics and proximity to the main market (Havana) than to prospectivity. The
largest of the currently-producing fields is Varadero Field, with an estimated 2 billion
barrels of oil in-place. Most of the present-day production comes from fractured Upper
Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous carbonate reservoirs (originally part of the Florida-
Bahamas platform) in structural traps of the north Cuban deformed belt. Relatively minor
production has also been established from fractured serpentinites and other basement
rocks. The major hydrocarbon source rocks are probably Upper Jurassic and/or Lower
Cretaceous in age. With the application of modern drilling and completion techniques
since Cuba opened its E&P sector to foreign participation in the 1990s, recently-drilled
wells commonly have sustained production rates above 1,000 bo/d, with some wells
reaching 3,000 bo/d. Despite these successes, current production still only meets around
30% of Cuba’s domestic demand. There are, however, indications that production and
reserves could be significantly greater in the future. In particular, the Cuban sector of the
Gulf of Mexico holds great promise as a future petroleum province.

Two different and genetically unrelated volcanic arc sequences occur in the Sierra Maestra, one Cretaceous in age (pre-Maastrichtian) and restricted to a few outcrops on the southern coast, and the other Palaeogene in age, forming the main expression of the mountain range. These two sequences are overlain by middle to late Eocene siliciclastic, carbonatic and terrigenous rocks as well as by late Miocene to Quaternary deposits exposed on the southern flank of the mountain range. These rocks are britle deformed and contain extension gashes filled with calcite and karst material. The Palaeogene volcanic arc successions were intruded by calc-alkaline, low- to medium-K tonalites and trondhjemites during the final stages of subduction and subsequent collision of the Caribbean oceanic plate with the North American continental plate.

Physiography and Geology of Cuba

Outside of four distinctly mountainous areas, the topography is subdued with elevations less than 100 meters (Faribridge, 1975b). The major mountain range is the Sierra Maestra in the southeastern part of Cuba. Pico Turquino, at an elevation of 1974 meters, is the highest peak in Cuba. Many other peaks higher than 1000 meters are present in this mountain range. The eastern end of Cuba is the most rugged part with the Sierra Maestra in the southeast and the Baracos Highlands in the northeast. The central part of the island includes the Santa Clara Hills rising to roughly 200 meters and the Escambray Mountains rising to nearly 700 meters. The Havana and Matanzas Highlands are found in the north-central part of the island near Havana. This is a structurally complex area. A mountainous are known as the Sierra de los Organos is found in the northwest. It is underlain by limestone producing a tropical cone karst landscape with ridgetops and peaks reaching 300 to 700 meters. Cuba is geologically a diverse island. Many of the coastal plains and interior valleys are underlain by Quaternary to Recent sediments. As noted earlier, the Sierra de los Organos represents an are of predominantly limestone. The Havana and Matanzas Highlands and the Santa Clara Hills are underlain by folded and faulted sedimentary bedrock. Sandstones, conglomerates, shales, and dolomites of Cretaceous and Tertiary age are predominant. Various metamorphic rock types make up the Escambray Mountains. In the east, the Sierra Maestra are badly folded layers of sandstone, shale, breccia, and limestone of Paleocene age. Considerable amounts of serpentine and peridotite are exposed within folded sedimentary rock units in neighboring Baracoa Highlands.

About 70% of this big island is covered by limestone. The location, close to the equator, is the reason why this limestone is developed as Tower Karst. The high amount of solution results in karstified limestone mountains all over the island.

Of course there are other interesting geologic features on Cuba, for example the famous Iridium anomaly which is connected with a meteor that hit nearby. This happened at the border between the Creataceous and the Tertiary, right the time when the dinosaurs disappeared. The meteor theory is one of several, trying to explain this mass extinction.

Cuba, land of limestone and caves is one of the largest islands in the Antilles, 1250km long and between 191 and 31km wide. It is a country about the size of England where limestone forms 66% of the landscape, much of which is well developed mogote and cone karst. The longest caves are found in the western province of Pinar del Río, where the Organos and Rosario mountains are steep and afforested, separated by deep dolines and broad poljes. The finest limestone towers of the Sierra Organos, near Vinales contain many large caves, including the Gran Caverna de San Tomós with a length of 47km.

The Sierra Maestre, eastern Cuba, is a classic karst area with many deep gorges and dolines. The island’s deepest cave the Cueva Jibara -246m is found here.

The Matanzas karst to the east of Havana has some remarkable caves. The Cueva del Gato Jibaro is 11km long. Whilst the Cueva de Bellamar has some fabulous calcite crystals over 50cm long. The Cueva Santa Catalina is renown for its cave mushrooms which are over a metre in height. They are composed of fragments of calcite ‘ice’ which forms on the gours pools.

There is a spectacular deep cone karst in the Camaguey region, which because of the difficulties of exploration, is virtually unexplored. Caves are known in many other regions, both on the mainland and on the smaller islands, for instance, the small island of Cayo Caguanes has over 12km of surveyed caves.

Just when we thought things could not get any worse another hurricane is heading towards Cuba. This time is called PALOMA and although is not as bad as previous GUSTAV and IKE last September the Cuban goverment is not taking any chances and is evacuating the southern- central part of the Island.

Tracking northeast to strike Cuba’s south-central coast late Saturday, and with Havana still reeling from a devastating storm season, Paloma would be the fifth to crash into the island this year.

The island began mobilizing its defenses in readiness for the tempest — preparing total evacuations of low-lying regions and coastal cities on the southern coast, prepping medical teams and equipping shelters for residents and up to 3,000 foreign tourists.

Cuba declared a hurricane warning for its central and eastern provinces Friday, covering Sancti Spiritus, Ciego de Avila, Camaguey, Las Tunas, Holguin, Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo, civil defense officials said.

In Holguin province, the area most devastated by Hurricane Ike in September, head of the region’s Civil Defense Council Miguel Diaz-Canel ordered emergency measures to protect life and property.

Gladys Sanchez, a resident of Minas, north of the central city of Camaguey told AFP by telephone that “no one had expected another hurricane.”

“There are people here who are still homeless,” she said, adding that local residents had just begun to recover from the previous storms.

“It has been raining here since morning — everything is dark,” she said.

The 2008 hurricane season, including devastating Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, has killed hundreds across the Caribbean and Central America and wrought billions of dollars in damage across the region.

Gustav and Ike, which struck Cuba on August 30 and September 9, caused an estimated 9.3 billion dollars in damage, almost double the original estimates, according to official reports.

In the Caribbean’s most populous island nation, with more than 11 million people, the storms have damaged some tourism infrastructure and destroyed about 80 percent of crops.