Above: St Croix

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The United States Virgin Islands has won a federal grant to support a new marine research facility in St Croix.

The $150,000 grant was awarded by the US Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, through the department’s Coral Reef Initiative.

The funding will go toward developing a Marine Research and Education Centre at the Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve.

“This grant is great news for the territory,” Governor John de Jongh said in a release. “It will help us move forward on a project that will facilitate important research on St Croix’s natural marine environment and archeological treasures, as well as position the territory to be a world leader in training oceanographers, marine biologists, archeologists and other researchers.”

The proposal covers a 60,000-square-foot campus for marine research and education programmes at the undergraduate and graduate level.

It will also include an “archaeological field school” on Caribbean Studies.