Earth and Environment Atlas

How The Planet Works
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Geological Formations

Phang Nga Bay

Erosional and Karst Formations

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Phang Nga Bay lies in the Andaman Sea between the island of Phuket and the Kra Isthmus mainland in southern Thailand, covering roughly 400 square kilometers and holding about 42 islands built from limestone karst, with cliffs cut by caves and collapsed cave systems. Its best known landmark, Ko Tapu, popularly called James Bond Island, is a needle-shaped limestone rock standing about 20 meters off the main beach. Around 10,000 years ago, sea levels were low enough that the area between Phuket and Krabi could be crossed on foot, and the bay's present drowned-karst landscape took shape as post-glacial sea level rise flooded the lower ground between the limestone towers. Caves around the bay preserve paintings more than a thousand years old, evidence of long human presence alongside the karst scenery. This entity documents Phang Nga Bay specifically as a geological formation, a limestone karst bay drowned by post-glacial sea level rise.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Caused By

In Discipline

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.