Chapter 5 The Atlantic Periphery

Guam's very own Atlantic Periphery contains the following the soil which I mentioned in Chapter 2 Guam’s Environmental Setting, the climate and fishing. Just a quick recap on the soil, it is richness is based on the two seasons that Guam goes through each year. Each cycle either makes the soil dry or wet making the people adapt to the weather changes to make a living.

Moving on to the second item I mentioned above, the climate has changed a lot in the last thousand years that also had a major impact on the vegetation changes of not only Guam but all of the Marianas Island. Other impacts include sea level reaching to 375 feet which was below of what was the present sea level of 22,000 years ago in the last glacial climate cycle. After the next 16,000 years the sea level rose, it wasn’t until 5,500 years ago that it became 6.6 feet higher than it is now. About 2,000 years ago it dropped dramatically to the present levels.

Some of the climatic changes that happened on Guam were caused by the people that inhabited the land by enforcing new vegetation, farming, forest clearing, habitation and new technology that changed the climate like the increase of greenhouse gases.

Lastly, I am going to talk about the fishing that Guam uses as an economy based product. The act of fishing, which I mentioned in the previous chapter, is used as a tourist attraction on Guam since they created a deep sea fishing route for tourists to see the vast variety of fishes that are found in the Marianas Trench near the island of Guam. Most visitors come to Guam to fish because there are no fees for catching and keeping fish and the visitors do not have to have a fishing license. They just have to stay in the designated areas.

Below is a picture of a Hawaiian Ula that I took during my visit in Seattle.