IGCP Project short title: Caribbean Plate Tectonics Duration and ...

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For this reason, during informal conversations during the meeting, we agree that the
IGCP-433 annual session to be celebrated during the forthcomming Caribbean Geological
Congress in Barbados (June, 2002), must focus in three main issues: 1) The Early Mesozoic
evolution of the Caribbean, 2) The Early Tertiaty Evolution of the Caribbean, and 3) The
interactions between the Caribbean Plate and South America.
Abstracts of the IGCP Project 433-Caribbean Plate Tectonics Presented at the GSA Annual
Meeting in Boston
EVOLUTION OF THE NORTHERN PORTION OF THE CARIBBEAN PLATE: PACIFIC
ORIGIN TO BAHAMIAN COLLISION
PINDELL, James, DRAPER, Grenville, KENNAN, Lorcan, STANEK, Klaus P., and
MARESCH, Walter V.
Pacific origin models of Caribbean are more compatible with regional Caribbean
geology than Intra-American models because (1) the Greater Antilles Arc (GAA) is older
than the Central American Arc, which is predicted by Pacific, but not by Intra-American
models; and (2) Caribbean tectonic interaction with northern Colombia and southern
Yucatan began in the Campanian, which requires a more southwestward (Pacific) position of
the Caribbean Plate before that time. We have refined earlier Pacific-derived Caribbean
evolutionary models to new levels of precision and conclude: 1) the Galapagos Hotspot did
not form the Caribbean plateau; 2) Early Cretaceous subduction dipped NE; 3) Panama-
Costa Rica arc formed at equatorial latitudes; 4) Caribbean HP/LT metamorphic
assemblages (except those of Jamaica) pertain to initiation and subsequent development of
SW-dipping subduction beneath the GAA that followed an Aptian-early Albian subduction
polarity reversal event; the new polarity then allowed the Caribbean
Plate to enter the inter-American realm during Upper Cretaceous-Cenozoic; 5) the central
Cuban Arc comprises mainly forearc elements of the GAA, and Sierra Maestra is more
representative of the GAA axis; 6) Campanian cessation of magmatism in central Cuba
resulted from shallowing of subduction as the GAA approached southern Yucatan, 7) the
Yucatan intra-arc basin formed in two phases: Maastrichtian –Paleocene NW-SE extension
driven by slab rollback of Jurassic Proto-Caribbean lithosphere along eastern Yucatan, and
Early and Middle Eocene NNE extension driven by rollback of Proto-Caribbean crust
toward the Bahamas, controlled by N-ward propagation of a NNE-trending east-Yucatan tear
fault, during which western and northern Cuban terranes were accreted to the front of the
central Cuban fore-arc; 8) Middle Eocene collision of all Cuban terranes with the Bahamas,
and rapid uplift of the orogen after the detachment of the SW-dipping; 9) Eocene onset of
Cayman Trough pull-apart as the Caribbean Plate began its well-known subsequent
migration to its present position ;10) Oligocene transpression in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico
which led to the ?Late Oligocene separation onset of separation of the Hispaniola arc
assemblages from Oriente, Cuba.
PHANEROZOIC TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF THE NORTH AMERICAN PLATE
BOUNDARY IN CUBA
ITURRALDE-VINENT, Manuel A.
In the Cuban territory crops out Phanerozoic rocks that contain stratigraphic sections
of both the Bahamas and Yucatan borderlands of the North American continental margin.
These sections can be subdivided into three tectonic stages as follow: 1. The Jurassic to
latest Cretaceous passive margin stage, represented by siliciclastic and carbonate rocks
sections that characterize the formation and early evolution of the Caribbean sea and its
northern continental margin. This was a stage of extensional stress and evolution from
intracontinental to open marine facies. 2. The to latest Eocene collisional margin stage,
represented by foreland sediments with large amount of
allochthonous materials (ophiolite and volcanic arc elements). During these stage took place
strong compressional deformations. 3. The latest Eocene to Recent stage, characterized by
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