23 From Earth to Mars: Processes and Patterns Below and Above the Surface

Friday, 21 April 2006
8:00 AM - 10:20 AM

ARUBA: GEOLOGY AND THE FORENSIC SPOTLIGHT

Paper number: 23-7
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:00 AM – 10:20 AM

Authors

Abstract

Small at only 75 mi2 (194 km2), the island of Aruba is located 15 (25 km) miles off the north coast of Venezuela. The island consists of Cretaceous mafic volcanics that were intruded by a late Cretaceous quartz diorite pluton. Carbonate reef rocks cover perhaps 35 percent of the island, and they continue to form as a fringing reef along the southern margin of the island. Additional features include a major shear zone that transects the south end of the island, and significant gold-quartz veins for which the island is famous. The following is from the Aruba Island Gold Mining Company, Ltd, Registered July 4th, 1872: “. . . the Island of Aruba, . . where . . two hundred auriferous veins of considerable importance and richness have been discovered, and (where) about 20,000 tons of gold-bearing quartz are now upon the surface ready for treatment.”

Aruba was thrust into the world spotlight with the disappearance there of American tourist Natalie Holloway on May 30th of 2005. Because she has not been found, it has remained in the spotlight. There is sufficient material to bury a person anywhere along the beaches of the island, and in streams valleys that drain the interior of the island. There also are deposits of sand-size tailings (esp.) at the old Balashi mill southeast of Oranjestad, and a body could be hidden in any of several mine openings, one of which (the Calabasa shaft) is quite deep and filled with water. However, there is only one place where frightened and impaired individuals could hide a body and be reasonably certain it would not be found: in the deepening water beyond the fringing reef along the south side of the island. We can hope this is the only time they've done such a thing.