The museum has a total of 500 sculptures, by a series of international and local sculptors,[1] with three different galleries submerged between three and six meters (9.8 and 19.6 ft ) deep in the ocean at the Cancún National Marine Park.

The museum was thought up by Marine Park Director Jaime González Cano, with the objective of saving the nearby coral reefs by providing an alternative destination for divers.

At the beginning of 2008, Jaime González Cano began to create the plans for an underwater museum that would be formed by nature into a coral reef.

[5] The Nautical-Tourism Advisory Subcommittee, where Roberto Díaz played an important role as President of the Nautical Association, agreed with the idea and to the plan presented by Dr. González for a series of artists to create an underwater sculpture museum.

As he began to build up first sculptures, The National Park staff in conducted by Dr. González Cano, and with the collaboration of Roberto Díaz as President of the Nautical Association produced the Environmental Impact Assessment which, as from October 2009, provides the legal basis for the deployment of 1,412 artificial habitats, in 10 sites (galleries) of the National Park for the following 50 years.

In addition, 26 replicas and one original are located at a visitor center at Plaza Kukulcán, a mall in the hotel zone of Cancún.

[5] Jason deCaires Taylor's The Silent Evolution consists of more than 400 human figures depicted interacting with the environment around them, with both a positive and negative impact.

They include a little girl with a faint smile on her face looking up to the surface; six businessmen with their heads in the sand, not paying attention to their surroundings; and even a man behind a desk with his dog lying beside him, but looking tired and uninvolved in the environment.

[6][13] The Silent Evolution is a two-part art installation: the underwater sculptures themselves are the first part, while the second is how nature will transform them as coral grows and a new reef forms.

[13] One exhibit room is on shore in a mall, Plaza Kukulcán, with 26 replicas and one original ceramic sculpture by Roberto Díaz Abraham, The Ocean Muse.