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Chapter 1
Caribbean Sedimentary Basins" Classification and Tectonic
Setting from Jurassic to Present
P. MANN
INTRODUCTION
Plate rates
The purpose of this introductory chapter is to
describe the active tectonic setting of the Caribbean,
its major crustal provinces, and to provide a simple classification for sedimentary basins in the
Caribbean region. In addition to this background
information on Caribbean basins, I provide a series
of thirteen quantitative plate reconstructions based
on the revised plate model of Mtiller et al. (Chapter
2). These reconstructions serve to place individual
basins into a better tectonic framework.
Rates of relative plate motion as predicted by
the Nuvel-lA plate motion model of DeMets et
al. (1994) are relatively slow (11-13 mm/year) between the Americas and the Caribbean plate but
much faster (59-74 mm/year) between the Cocos, Nazca and Caribbean plates (Fig. 1). Recent
GPS-based studies of the relative motion between
the North America and Caribbean plates in the
northeastern Caribbean by Dixon et al. (1998) have
shown that the actual North America-Caribbean
rate of east-west strike-slip motion may be twice
as fast as predicted by the Nuvel-lA plate motion
model.
ACTIVE TECTONIC SETTING OF CARIBBEAN
SEDIMENTARY BASINS
Earthquake studies
Major plates
The distribution of recorded earthquakes, active
calc-alkaline volcanoes, and spreading ridges defines five rigid plates in the Caribbean region:
North America, South America, Caribbean, and
Nazca (Molnar and Sykes, 1969; Mann et al., 1990)
(Fig. 1). Geologic and seismic studies indicate that
the Caribbean plate is moving eastward relative to
the Americas, and this movement is accommodated
by left-lateral strike-slip faults along its boundary with the North America plate, and right-lateral
strike-slip faults along its boundary with the South
America plate. Oceanic lithosphere of the North and
South America plates is consumed along the eastern edge of the Caribbean at the Lesser Antilles
subduction zone. Oceanic lithosphere of the Cocos
and Nazca plates is consumed along the western
and southwestern edge of the plate at the Middle
America subduction zone (Fig. 1).
There have been many first-motion studies on
large Caribbean earthquakes over the past 25 years
and I have compiled a representative group from
the Harvard focal mechanism catalogue on Fig. 1.
Because large earthquakes occur more frequently in
subduction zone settings, many more focal mechanisms are available from the Lesser Antilles and
Middle America arcs than for the northern and
southern dominantly strike-slip plate boundaries. In
general, subduction zone earthquakes are characterized by shallow thrust faulting with the auxiliary
plane striking approximately parallel to the trend
of the trench and dipping steeply away from the
arc and with the fault plane striking subparallel
to the arc trend and dipping gently beneath the
arc. First-motion studies from the strike-slip plate
boundaries are consistent with shallow focus leftlateral fault displacements along the northern plate
boundary zone and right-lateral displacements along
the southern plate boundary zone (Fig. 1).
Caribbean Basins. Sedimentary Basins of the World, 4 edited by E Mann (Series Editor: K.J. Hsti), pp. 3-31.
9 1999 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam. All rights reserved.
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Fig. 1. Earthquake focal mechanisms and plate motions relative to a fixed Caribbean plate based on the NUVEL-1A global plate motion
model of DeMets et al. (1994). Numbers give rate of plate motion in mm/year and arrows give directions of plate motion. Focal
mechanisms are color-coded according to depth: red mechanisms are from earthquakes from 0 to 75 km in depth; blue mechanisms
are from earthquake from 75 to 150 km in depth; and green mechanisms are > 150 km in depth. Basemap is the Geosat gravity
map of the Caribbean compiled by Sandwell and Smith (1997). In accordance with plate motion model predictions, earthquake focal
mechanisms show predominantly left-lateral motion along the northern edge of the Caribbean plate, predominantly right-lateral motion
along the southeastern edge of the plate, predominantly thrust motion at the eastern and western ends of the plate, and predominately
northeast-directed right-lateral motion associated with the displacement of the Maracaibo block in the southwestern Caribbean. The
Maracaibo block is a continental-arc fragment of northwestern South America that is escaping to the north and northeast as a response to
the late Neogene collision of the Panama arc and oblique subduction of the northern Nazca plate.
First-motion studies along with geologic and
GPS-based geodetic studies have shown that the
northwestern corner of South America (Maracaibo
block of Mann and Burke, 1990) is being displaced
northward and northwestward along the B o c o n 6 eastern Andean right-lateral strike-slip fault system
in Colombia and western Venezuela (McCann and
Pennington, 1990; Kellogg and Vega, 1995) (Fig. 1).
This displacement appears to be a consequence of
late Neogene collision of the Panama arc with northwestern South America (Mann and Burke, 1990).
MAJOR CRUSTAL PROVINCES OF THE CARIBBEAN
REGION
The Caribbean region consists of a rim of
Cretaceous-Recent arc terranes and associated
back-arc basins molded about a sub-circular core
consisting of a continental fragment in the western
Caribbean (Chortfs block) and an oceanic plateau
province beneath the central and eastern Caribbean
(cf. Case et al., 1990, for a comprehensive review of
all Caribbean crustal provinces) (Fig. 2).
Chortis block
S u b d u c t e d slabs
Inclined subducted slabs extend to depths of 150
km under most o f the land areas adjacent to the
Lesser Antilles and Middle America arcs (McCann
and Pennington, 1990; Dewey and Sufirez, 1991)
(Fig. 1). Subducted slabs are also present beneath
much of the northwestern comer of South America
(van der Hilst and Mann, 1994).
The Chortfs block of northern Central America
consists of well-dated Mesozoic and Cenozoic formations which unconformably overlie a continental
basement of poorly dated, metamorphic rocks of
Paleozoic and possible Precambrian age (Gordon,
1991) (Fig. 2). Seismic velocities confirm that the
Chortfs block is continental (Case et al., 1990) but
the isotopic ages of metamorphic protolith rocks
C A R I B B E A N S E D I M E N T A R Y BASINS" C L A S S I F I C A T I O N A N D T E C T O N I C S E T T I N G
5
Fig. 2. Major crustal provinces of the Caribbean: Precambrian-Paleozoic Chortfs block; Cretaceous oceanic plateau of the central
Caribbean; Early Cretaceous-Recent Great Arc of the Caribbean; and passive margins of North and South America. Red lines indicate
active plate boundaries and white lines are magnetic anomaly and fracture zone trends from Coffin et al. (1992). Key to abbreviations: YB
-----Yucatan basin; GB = Grenada basin.
exposed in Honduras have not been established.
Limited isotopic age dates indicate a late Paleozoic metamorphic event around 300 Ma and show
that these rocks are pre-Mesozoic (Gordon, 1991).
The dominant basement rock types are phyllitic
and graphitic schists which can contain interlayers
of metaconglomerate and quartzite. The overlying
Mesozoic stratigraphy consists of Middle Jurassic
through Early Cretaceous clastic rocks overlain by
Aptian-Albian shallow marine limestone (Scott and
Finch, Chapter 6). The stratigraphic record indicates
that the Chortfs block was a region of minimal
tectonic activity during the Mesozoic but was subject to regional folding and faulting events in the
Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic (Av6 Lallemant and
Gordon, Chapter 8; Manton and Manton, Chapter 9).
Caribbean oceanic plateau
The central and eastern Caribbean is underlain
by an oceanic plateau with a 12-15 km thickness
that is intermediate between oceans and continents
over most of its area (Case et al., 1990; Diebold and
Driscoll, Chapter 19) (Fig. 2). Caribbean ocean floor
made in Cretaceous or earlier times would normally
have subsided as it aged to depths of between 5
and 6 km below sea level, and where it is overlain
by 2 km of sediments, it might be expected to lie
about 1 km deeper. The shallow depth of most of
the Caribbean ocean floor, averaging 1-2 km less
than predicted, is commonly attributed to the rapid
and widespread emplacement of basaltic flows and
sills to form an' immense oceanic plateau during
Santonian time (~88 Ma) (Burke, 1988; Donnelly et
al., 1990; Sinton et al., 1997).
Deformation of the Caribbean plate edges has led
to exposure of the edges of the Caribbean oceanic
plateau in Costa Rica (Sinton et al., 1997), Panama
(Bowland and Rosencrantz, 1988), southern Hispaniola (Sen et al., 1988), Colombia, and northern
Venezuela (Kerr et al., 1997). The thickness and
geochemistry of the Caribbean oceanic plateau is
similar to that of western Pacific oceanic plateaus
including the Manihiki and Ontong Java (Bowland
and Rosencrantz, 1988; Kerr et al., 1997).
Diebold and Driscoll (Chapter 19) and Driscoll
and Diebold (Chapter 20) show that Caribbean
oceanic plateau volcanism was a two-phase event.
They suggest that the Santonian age sampled from
circum-Caribbean outcrops and from DSDP and
ODP cores in the Colombian and Venezuelan basins
(Donnelly et al., 1990) dates only the second smaller
phase of plateau formation.
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Great Arc of the Caribbean
Arc rocks of a Cretaceous-Eocene island-arc chain
are found in a semi-continuous belt from Cuba to the
north coast of South America (Fig. 2). The northern,
or Greater Antilles, segment of the arc from Cuba to
the Virgin Islands east of Puerto Rico has been inactive since its collision with the Bahamas Platform
in Late Paleocene to earliest Oligocene time. Major pulses of collision were broadly diachronous and
occurred in Late Paleocene/earliest Eocene time in
western Cuba (Bralower and Iturralde-Vinent, 1997;
Gordon et al., 1997), Early to Middle Eocene in
central Cuba (Hempton and Barros, 1993), Middle
Eocene to Recent in Hispaniola (Mann et al., 1991)
and Late Eocene to Early Oligocene in Puerto Rico
(Dolan et al., 1991). Arc rocks of Early to Late Cretaceous age are found in a continuous belt along the
Aves Ridge, the remnant arc produced by rifting of
the Grenada back-arc basin, and the Leeward Antilles
along the northern coast of South America (Av6 Lallemant, 1997) (Fig. 2). Although the lack of reliable isotopic ages does not allow recognition of di~chroneity
in the age of the arc, the arc is adjacent to a west
to east-younging fold-thrust belt along the northern
margin of South America (Av6 Lallemant, 1997).
Because all arc segments initiated during the
Early Cretaceous and exhibit lithologic and geochemical similarities, several groups of workers
have interpreted circum-Caribbean island-arc rocks
as a continuous volcanic arc chain that ringed
the Cretaceous Caribbean oceanic plateau (Malfait and Dinkelman, 1972; Pindell and Barrett,
1990) (Fig. 2). This apparently continuous volcanic chain has been called the 'Great Arc of the
Caribbean' (Burke, 1988), the 'Mesozoic Caribbean
Arc' (Bouysse, 1988), and the 'Proto-Antillean Arc'
(Donnelly et al., 1990). In this chapter, I adopt the
term 'Great Arc' for three reasons: (1) brevity; (2)
the age of the arc in the Greater Antilles ranges into
the Cenozoic and therefore is not always restricted to
the Mesozoic; and (3) the extent of island-arc rocks
related to the arc may extend far beyond the present
geographic area of the Greater and Lesser Antilles.
Back-arc basins associated with the Great Arc
Paleogene back-arc basins are present along most
of the length of the Great Arc of the Caribbean
(Fig. 2). Marine heat-flow measurements and depth
to basement calculations using marine seismic profiles from the Yucatan basin suggest that it formed
during a brief period of northeasterly extension
between Paleocene and Early Eocene time (Rosencrantz, 1990). Similar calculations in the Grenada
back-arc basin indicate that it formed during the
Paleocene hiatus in arc activity along the Lesser
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Antilles island arc (Bouysse, 1988). Bird et al.
(Chapter 15) show that the direction of opening
of the Grenada basin was approximately east-west
rather than north-south as proposed by Pindell and
Barrett (1990). Heubeck et al. (1991) proposed that
a narrow belt of now-inverted, Paleogene basinal
rocks exposed on the island of Hispaniola may represent the continuation of the Grenada and Yucatfin
back-arc basins in this area (Fig. 2).
Deformation of Caribbean crust and basin
formation
Plate tectonics within collages of continental and
island-arc lithosphere like the Caribbean is well recognized to be more complicated than that in the
oceans because of the existence of many older faults
which act as lines of weakness and because silicarich and feldspar-rich rocks of continents and island
arcs deform more easily at low temperatures than
do oceanic basalts (Fig. 2). These facts explain the
broad (~200-250 km) zones of plate-edge seismicity and late Neogene deformation along all margins
of the Caribbean plate as well as the diffuse zones
of seismicity and active faulting within the Chortfs
block suggestive of large-scale, internal plate deformation (Manton, 1987; Gordon and Muehlberger,
1994) (Fig. 1). This complex crustal and active plate
setting leads to basin subsidence in response to a variety of subsidence mechanisms as well as basin inversions related to abruptly changing tectonic settings.
PREVIOUS CLASSIFICATIONS AND REGIONAL
STUDIES OF CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS
There have been many previous classifications
and regional studies of Caribbean sedimentary basins
within a plate-tectonic framework. Gonzalez de
Juana et al. (1980) carried out a thorough compilation on sedimentary basins in Venezuela for the
Venezuelan oil industry. Burke et al. (1984) compiled information on Mesozoic rifts in the Caribbean
and Gulf of Mexico related to the breakup of North
and South America along with post-Eocene strikeslip basins from the southern and northern margins
of the Caribbean. Ladd and Buffler (1985) compiled
data on trench and forearc basins of the Middle
America arc and Speed and Westbrook (1984) compiled data on forearc and intra-arc basins of the
Lesser Antilles arc as part of data syntheses sponsored by the Ocean Drilling Program. Burkart and
Self (1985) and Manton (1987) compiled data on
active rift basins of the Chortfs block. Eva et al.
(1989) compiled information from mainly onland
rift, arc and strike-slip basins in Venezuela, Trinidad
and the Leeward Antilles. Holcombe et al. (1990)
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS: CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
and Ladd et al. (1990) compiled information on
submarine basins from the plate interior and active plate margins, respectively, as part of the GSA
Decade of North American Geology volume on the
Caribbean. St6phan et al. (1990) presented fourteen
reconstructions of the Caribbean with superimposed
paleogeographic information for the period from the
Jurassic to the present-day. Dolan et al. (1991) compiled information and presented a tectonic synthesis
of onland Paleogene sedimentary basins of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Pindell (1995) compiled
information on rifts related to North America-South
America breakup and along with foreland basins
related to the diachronous collision of the Great Arc
of the Caribbean and the passive margins of North
and South America.
BASIN CLASSIFICATION USED IN THIS OVERVIEW
Fig. 3 summarizes the nomenclature I use in this
chapter to classify Caribbean sedimentary basins.
Four main types of basins are recognized that are
associated with strike-slip, island-arc, collisional and
rift environments.
Strike-slip basins
Using nomenclature developed by geologists in
California and New Zealand, I classify Caribbean
strike-slip basins into five basin types based on their
bounding fault structure: (1) pull-apart basins produced by extension at a discontinuity or 'step' along
a section of a strike-slip fault; (2) fault-wedge basins
occurring at intersections of bifurcating strike-slip
7
faults; (3) fault-angle depressions parallel to a single strike-slip fault trace; (4) fault-flank depressions
between transverse secondary folds or normal faults;
and (5) ramp or 'push-down' basins between reverse
or thrust faults related to strike-slip movement (Cobbold et al., 1993) (Fig. 3A). All of these late Neogene basin types typically mark zones of strike-sliprelated tectonic subsidence and are found offshore or
in topographically low onland depressions or valleys.
Areas of most rapid tectonic uplift in both the
northern and southern Caribbean region are often localized on restraining bend strike-slip fault segments
or 'push-ups' related to shortening at a discontinuity or 'step' along a throughgoing strike-slip
fault. Because these bends are usually the sites of
rapid, long-term (>5 m.y.) uplift, the bends typically form deeply eroded mountainous areas that are
typically structural domes exposing Cretaceous and
older basement rocks.
Island-arc basins
Island-arc basins include trench-fill basins, forearc basins, intra-arc basins bounded by highs or
volcanoes within the volcanic arc, and back-arc
basins (Fig. 3B). The most prominent examples of
island-arc basins in the Caribbean include back-arc
basins of the active Middle America arc (MedianNicaraguan, Mann et al., 1990), the extinct Greater
Antilles segment of the Great Arc (Yucat~in basin,
Rosencrantz, 1990), and the active Lesser Antilles
arc (Grenada basin, Bird et al., Chapter 15). Island-arc basins of the Great Arc are commonly
deformed and require careful mapping to delineate
their extent and internal facies.
Fig. 3. Basin classification nomenclature used in this chapter to classify Caribbean sedimentary basins shown on Figs. 5-10. (A)
Strike-slip basin types. (B) Island-arc basin types. (C) Collisional basin types. (D) Rift basin types.
8
Collisional basins
This basin type includes foreland or foredeep
basins, which are by far the most extensive and
thickest of all the basin types shown on Fig. 3. In the
Caribbean, these basins mark the flexure of the continental or thinned crust of the North and South America plates beneath the overriding thrust sheets of the
Great Arc of the Caribbean. Piggyback basins
which can also form in non-collisional accretionary
prism settings like the Barbados Ridge complex in
front of the Lesser Antilles arc (Huyghe et al., Chapter 14) m form and are filled while being carried on
moving thrust sheets (Ori and Friend, 1984).
Rift basins
This basin type includes full-grabens or rifts and
half-grabens or rifts. Full-graben means a graben
bounded on both sides by normal faults while halfgraben means a graben bounded only on one side
by a normal fault. The full and half types can occur
singly or together and be linked by transverse strikeslip faults called transfer faults. The best examples
of uninverted rifts in the Caribbean are Jurassic rifts
related to the breakup of North and South America
found in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico (Marton
and Buffler, Chapter 3) and Paleogene rifts related to
the early formation of the Cayman trough pull-apart
basin (Leroy et al., 1996).
Inverted basins
Structural inversion of basins means that the
basin-controlling extensional faults reversed their
movement because of convergent tectonics and the
basin was turned inside out to form a present-day
mountain range (Williams et al., 1989). Because of
the continuing activity along its margin there are
many examples of inverted Caribbean sedimentary
basins that include inverted Jurassic rifts in northwestern South America (Lugo and Mann, 1995),
inverted intra-arc basins of the Greater Antilles segment of the Great Arc (Mann and Burke, 1990;
Dolan et al., 1991), and inverted forearc basins of
the Middle America arc (Kolarsky et al., 1995a).
Inverted basins provide valuable insights into the
early stratigraphic history of basins provided that
their sediments can be well dated and their structural
overprint can be removed.
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(1997) make an excellent tool for the study and classification of Caribbean sedimentary basins. On these
maps, free-air gravity highs marked by the yellow
and orange colors correspond to seafloor highs that
include active volcanic arcs, remnant volcanic arcs,
uplifted oceanic plateau crust, peripheral bulges in
flexed Mesozoic oceanic crust of the Atlantic Ocean
and Cenozoic crust of the Pacific Ocean and carbonate platforms and isolated banks. Fracture zones
in oceanic crust are expressed as fine lineaments
traceable over distances up to several hundred kilometers. Trenches at subduction zones, sedimentary
accretionary wedges, and major sedimentary basins
of the types shown on Fig. 3 are marked by large
free-air gravity lows.
I have divided the Caribbean gravity data set into
six sub-areas that allow better resolution of basins in
the individual areas (Fig. 4). These areas include: (1)
basins associated with the Middle America trench,
arc, and back-arc in the western Caribbean (Central America) (Fig. 5); (2) basins associated with
the North America-Caribbean plate boundary in the
northern Caribbean (Fig. 6); (3) basins associated
with the Lesser Antilles trench, arc, and back-arc in
the eastern Caribbean (Fig. 7); (4) basins associated
with the South America-Caribbean plate boundary in the southern Caribbean (Fig. 8); (5) basins
associated with the Panama arc-South America collisional zone in the southwestern Caribbean (Panama
and Costa Rica) (Fig. 9); and (6) basins associated
with the central Caribbean plate (Nicaraguan Rise,
Colombian basin, and Venezuelan basin) (Fig. 10).
Because free-air gravity is a close approximation
of seafloor bathymetry, only those submarine Cenozoic basins with prominent morphologic expression
can be distinguished on these maps. Older deformed
basins from previous tectonic phases might be expressed as a gravity high or intermediate gravity
value. For this reason, the offshore basins classified
in this study are generally Cenozoic basins generated during the more recent phases of Caribbean
strike-slip and subduction tectonics. For this reason,
these maps should not be considered as complete
compilations of all Caribbean sedimentary basins.
BASINS AND MAJOR TECTONIC FEATURES
ASSOCIATED WITH THE MIDDLE AMERICA TRENCH,
ARC, AND BACK-ARC (WESTERN CARIBBEAN)
Rifts associated with the f r a g m e n t a t i o n of the
western Chortis block
USE OF GRAVITY MAPS TO ILLUSTRATE CARIBBEAN
SEDIMENTARY BASINS
Gridded, 2-min, satellite-derived free-air gravity
data compiled and described by Sandwell and Smith
Seven approximately north-south-striking Neogene rifts and half-rifts are present in the northwestern corner of the Caribbean plate (Chortfs block)
between the Median back-arc basin and the North
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS: CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
9
Fig. 4. Map showing locations of regional gravity maps of Sandwell and Smith (1997) used in this chapter in Figs. 5-10 to illustrate
regional tectonic features.
America-Caribbean strike-slip zone in Guatemala,
Honduras and E1 Salvador (Nos. 1-7 in Fig. 5).
Little is known about of the exact age for the onset
of rifting and the thickness of the sedimentary fill of
these rifts. Several authors have attributed the transverse nature of the faulting to internal deformation
of the Caribbean plate as it moves eastward relative
to the North America Plate along concave southward, left-lateral strike-slip faults of the MotaguaPolochfc system (No. 8 in Fig. 5) (Plafker, 1976;
Burkart and Self, 1985).
Inverted forearc basin rocks adjacent to the
subducting Cocos Ridge
Shallow subduction of the Cocos Ridge in Late
Miocene to Recent time has inverted a marine forearc basin of Oligocene and Miocene age between
the arc and trench (Kolarsky et al., 1995a) (No. 13)
along with trench-slope facies on the Pacific peninsulas of Panama and Costa Rica (Corrigan et al.,
1990; Collins et al., 1995) (No. 14). This inverted
basin is collinear with the undisturbed, offshore
Sandino forearc basin to the north along the margin
of Nicaragua and E1 Salvador (No. 16).
Median-Nicaraguan back-arc basin
This late Neogene back-arc basin forms a prominent, 800-km-long structural depression parallel to
the Middle America volcanic arc and trench (No. 9).
This basin is most prominent in Nicaragua where
it is occupied by two large lakes (Managua and
Nicaragua) (No. 10). Late Quaternary arc volcanoes occur at the edges, in the center and adjacent
to the basin. Back-arc basin sedimentary rocks of
Oligocene to Neogene age are inverted along the
southeastern extension of the back-arc basin in Costa
Rica (No. 11). This localized back-arc basin inversion is Late Miocene to Recent in age and is related
to the shallow subduction of the Cocos Ridge (Kolarsky et al., 1995a) (No. 15). The Median back-arc
basin to the north (No. 12) is a less distinctive and
linear basinal feature than the Nicaraguan basin to
the south.
Cocos Ridge
The Cocos Ridge (No. 15) is a hotspot trace of
the Galapagos hotspot that stands 2 to 2.5 km higher
than the surrounding seafloor and is presently subducting beneath the southern Middle America trench
(Kolarsky et al., 1995a). Collins et al. (1995) propose on the basis of detailed biostratigraphic work
that the Cocos Ridge contacted the Middle AmeriCa
trench about 3.6 Ma and inverted the back-arc area
of Costa Rica by 1.6 Ma.
Panama fracture zone
This fault (No. 17) is a right-lateral transform
fault that separates oceanic crust of the Cocos and
Nazca plates.
10
P. M A N N
Fig. 5. Geosat free-air gravity map of marine areas associated with the Middle America trench, arc and back-arc in the western Caribbean
(Central America). Gravity highs are shown by darker colors and lows are shown by lighter colors. Numbers identify Cenozoic basins
that are described in the text.
Fig. 6. Geosat free-air gravity map of marine areas associated with the North America-Caribbean plate boundary in the northern
Caribbean. Gravity highs are shown by darker colors and lows are shown by lighter colors. Numbers identify Cenozoic basins that are
described in the text.
C A R I B B E A N S E D I M E N T A R Y BASINS" C L A S S I F I C A T I O N A N D T E C T O N I C S E T T I N G
11
Fig. 7. Geosat free-air gravity map of marine areas associated with the Lesser Antilles trench, arc and back-arc in the eastern Caribbean.
Gravity highs are shown by darker colors and lows are shown by lighter colors. Numbers identify Cenozoic basins that are described in
the text.
Fig. 8. Geosat free-air gravity map of marine areas associated with the South America-Caribbean plate boundary in the southern
Caribbean. Gravity highs are shown by darker colors and lows are shown by lighter colors. Numbers identify Cenozoic basins that are
described in the text.
12
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north from rough Cocos lithosphere created at the
Galapagos rift system to the south (Protti et al.,
1995). Forearc morphology adjacent to the Galapagos seafloor and the Cocos Ridge is tectonically
eroded by the higher standing and rougher seafloor
southeast of the rough-smooth boundary (von Huene
et al., 1995; Kolarsky et al., 1995a).
BASINS AND MAJOR TECTONIC FEATURES
ASSOCIATED WITH THE NORTH
AMERICA-CARIBBEAN PLATE BOUNDARY
(NORTHERN CARIBBEAN)
North America-Caribbean foreland basin and
active plate boundary in Central America, Cuba,
Hispaniola, and the Puerto Rico trench
Fig. 9. Geosat free-air gravity map of marine areas associated with the Panama arc-South America collisional zone in
the southwestern western Caribbean (Panama and Costa Rica).
Gravity highs are shown by darker colors and lows are shown
by lighter colors. Numbers identify Cenozoic basins that are
described in the text.
Rough-smooth boundary of the Cocos plate
This boundary (No. 18) separates a smooth Cocos
lithosphere created at the East Pacific Rise to the
A semi-continuous foreland basin recording the
collision between the Great Arc of the Caribbean
and the passive margin of North America can be
traced from the Sepur foreland basin of northern
Central America (No. 1 in Fig. 6), along the eastern
edge of the Yucatan Peninsula (Rosencrantz, 1990;
Lara, 1993; No. 2), along the northern (Denny et al.,
1994; No. 3) and northeastern coasts of Cuba (Ball
et al., 1985; No. 4), along the northwestern (Dillon
et al., 1992; No. 5) and northeastern (Dolan et al.,
1998; No. 6) coasts of Hispaniola, and in the Puerto
Rico trench (Masson and Scanlon, 1991; Grindlay
et al., 1997; No. 7). The age of the foreland basin
is diachronous with Late Cretaceous thrust-related
subsidence in northern Central America (Rosenfeld,
1990), Paleocene-Early Eocene subsidence in western Cuba (Bralower and Iturralde-Vinent, 1997),
Early to Middle Eocene in central Cuba (Hempton and Barros, 1993), Middle Eocene to Recent
in Hispaniola (Mann et al., 1991) and Late Eocene
to Early Oligocene in Puerto Rico (Dolan et al.,
1991).
Fig. 10. Geosat free-air gravity map of marine areas associated with the central Caribbean plate (Nicaraguan Rise, Colombian basin,
Beata Ridge, Venezuelan basin). Gravity highs are shown by darker colors and lows are shown by lighter colors. Numbers identify
Cenozoic basins that are described in the text.
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS: CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
13
Yucat~in back-arc basin
Muertos trough and 'forearc' basin
The Yucatfin basin formed in Paleocene time behind the Cuban segment of the Great Arc of the
Caribbean as it moved to the north and northeast prior to its collision with the Bahama Platform (Rosencrantz, 1990). The basin exhibits three
sub-basins. The West Yucatan basin (No. 8) is an
oceanic-floored pull-apart basin formed along leftlateral faults bounding the Yucatan Peninsula. The
Central Yucatan basin (No. 9) and Cayman Rise (No.
10) are basins formed on stretched arc or continental crust thinned in a back-arc setting. The Cayman
Ridge (No. 11) south of the Cayman Rise could be
considered a remnant arc although it has been strongly
overprinted by strike-slip faulting related to the active
plate boundary in the Cayman trough (No. 12).
The Muertos trench (No. 18) accommodates
northward underthrusting of the Caribbean oceanic
plateau of the Venezuelan basin beneath Hispaniola
(Ladd et al., 1990; Dolan et al., 1998). A forearctype basin has formed on the overriding plate south
of Hispaniola (Ladd et al., 1990; No. 19) but is not
associated with a volcanic arc probably because the
angle of subduction of the Caribbean plate is too low
to generate wellling.
Cayman trough
The Cayman trough (No. 12) is an 1100-km-long
pull-apart basin that began its protracted history of
oceanic spreading at a 100-kin-long spreading ridge
during the Early Eocene (Rosencrantz et al., 1988).
The eastern end of the trough (No. 14) is marked by
half-grabens of Paleocene-Eocene age (Leroy et al.,
1996) that may be coeval with an inverted PaleoceneEocene graben in Jamaica (Mann and Burke, 1990).
Basins and inverted basins associated with the
southern edge of the Cayman trough
Late Neogene basin formation, restraining bend
uplifts, and inverted Paleogene rifts in this area
are linked to left-lateral strike-slip movements along
the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone (No. 13).
Some basins like the Tela of northern Honduras
(No. 14) (Av6 Lallemant and Gordon, Chapter 8;
Manton and Manton, Chapter 9) are not clearly
linked to a specific fault zone and instead appear
to be part of broad structural borderland within the
broad strike-slip plate boundary zone.
Basins associated with the Anegada fault zone
This fault (No. 20) has been interpreted by Jany et
al. (1990) as an active right-lateral fault bounding the
eastern edge of a Puerto Rico-Hispaniola microplate
(Jany et al., 1990). Two right-steps along the fault
are interpreted as pull-apart basins that formed by
right-lateral motion in Late Miocene to Recent time.
Gill et al. (Chapter 13) propose that motion along
the Anegada fault zone is left-lateral, rather than
right-lateral on the basis of detailed stratigraphic
studies on St. Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands) to the
south of the fault.
BASINS AND MAJOR TECTONIC FEATURES
ASSOCIATED WITH THE LESSER ANTILLES TRENCH,
ARC, AND BACK-ARC(EASTERN CARIBBEAN)
Aves Ridge remnant arc
The Aves Ridge (No. 1 in Fig. 7) is a remnant
arc formed when Paleogene east-west opening of
the Grenada back-arc basin separated the ridge from
the Lesser Antilles arc (Bouysse, 1988; Bird et al.,
Chapter 15). Dredge hauls and marine geophysics
indicate that the ridge formed part of the Late
Cretaceous Great Arc that ceased activity by the
time of back-arc opening of the Grenada basin in
Early Paleogene time.
Grenada back-arc basin
Convergent strike-slip basins of the Hispaniola
restraining bend
Convergence of the eastward-moving Caribbean
plate relative to the southeastern extension of the
Bahama Platform has led to localized convergence
and topographic uplift in Hispaniola (Mann et al.,
1995). Three late Neogene basins in Hispaniola
(Nos. 15, 16, 17) are the thrust-bounded ramp type
(Mann et al., Chapter 12) (Fig. 3A).
The Grenada back-arc basin (No. 2) with an
average water depth of 2-3 km, contains 2 km
(north) to 9 km (south) of Cenozoic sediment derived
from both the erosion of South America and the
Lesser Antilles arc (Bouysse, 1988). Opening of the
basin was in an east-west direction (Bird et al.,
1993). The gravity low of the Grenada basin can be
traced along much of the margin of northern South
America where it is oriented east-west, is narrower,
and parallel to collisional structures of the margin.
1
4
E
Lesser Antilles volcanic arc
The Lesser Antilles volcanic arc (No. 3) initiated in Early Cretaceous and has remained active to
the present (Speed and Westbrook, 1984; Bouysse,
1988). Its position at the leading edge of the eastward-moving Caribbean plate means that it may
be far-traveled and probably originated somewhere
in the eastern Pacific Ocean (Pindell and Barrett,
1990). Underthrusting of Jurassic-Cretaceous age
oceanic crust of the Atlantic Ocean beneath the
Lesser Antilles results in line of active calc-alkaline
volcanoes forming the volcanic arc. The gravity high
of the volcanic arc can be traced to the southwest
along the northern margin of South America and to
the northeast through the Virgin Islands and Puerto
Rico.
Kallinago basin
This basin (No. 4) forms an intra-arc basin with
the northern Lesser Antilles volcanic arc and formed
in the Late Miocene by the westward migration of
the volcanic line from the islands on its eastern
flank (Limestone Caribbees). The Kallinago basin is
not a typical rift basin related to back-arc spreading
because the volcanic line jumped westward away
from the trench and not toward the trench as found
in most back-arc basins. McCann and Pennington
(1990) attributed this unusual behavior related to the
subduction of the Barracuda fracture zone ridge (No.
9) which lowered the angle of subduction and caused
the volcanic arc to migrate westward.
Tobago trough
This 10-km-thick, Miocene to Recent basin (No.
5) is bounded on its eastern edge by back-thrusts
within the accretionary wedge of the Lesser Antilles
arc (Barbados Ridge complex, No. 7) (Speed et al.,
1989). The Tobago trough extends to the west along
the northern margin of South America.
Lithospheric trace of the Lesser Antilles
subduction zone
The contact or lithospheric trace between crystalline rocks of the Lesser Antilles arc and downgoing oceanic crust of the Atlantic Ocean (No. 6)
lies at a depth of about 20 km north of Trinidad but
is marked by the line of demarcation between faint
northeast gravity trends on strike with Atlantic fracture zone trends and prominent north-south trends
of the Lesser Antilles arc. The island of Tobago
with a Cretaceous to Eocene record of arc activity is
located just to the west of this contact and is therefore the most eastward outcrop of arc rocks of the
MANN
Caribbean plate. The north-south lithospheric trace
and the east-west E1 Pilar fault zone of Trinidad and
northern Venezuela (No. 13) can be seen to form a
continuous and curving lineament.
Barbados Ridge accretionary complex and
deformation front
This accretionary wedge (No. 7) between 100
and 300 km wide and from 0.5 (toe of slope)
to 20 km (above lithospheric trace) thick consists
of the mainly clastic fluvial and pelagic sediments
offscraped from the downgoing Atlantic ocean floor
(Ladd et al., 1990). Southward widening of the
complex reflects the fluvial addition of material
from the Orinoco delta area south of Trinidad (No.
6). The deformation front is marked by the most
eastward thrust fault juxtaposing the Barbados Ridge
accretionary complex with undeformed seafloor of
the Atlantic Ocean. This front is roughly east-west
and irregular in the area to the east of Trinidad.
Piggyback basins (Fig. 3C) and shale diapirs derived
from muds in the prodelta area of the Orinoco River
are common in this area (Huyghe et al., Chapter 14).
BASINS AND MAJOR TECTONIC FEATURES
ASSOCIATED WITH THE SOUTH
AMERICA-CARIBBEAN PLATE BOUNDARY
(SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN)
The Aves Ridge (No. 1 in Fig. 8), the Grenada
back-arc basin (No. 2), the Lesser Antilles volcanic
arc (No. 3), and the Tobago trough (No. 4), which
extend into this area, are described above and are
also shown on Fig. 7.
Guyana passive margin of South America
This Cretaceous-Recent margin (No. 5 in Fig. 8)
formed by rifting and strike-slip of the Africa plate
past the South America Plate in earliest Cretaceous
time (Pindell and Barrett, 1990). The margin projects
into a buried passive margin buried beneath the Gulf
of Paria west of Trinidad and may control the
location of strike-slip faults in this area (Babb and
Mann, Chapter 18).
Orinoco delta
The Orinoco River drains a large area of the
northeastern South American continent and forms
one of the major shelf-margin deltas in the world
(No. 6).
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS: CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
Eastern Venezuelan and Maracaibo basins
This basin is a major foreland basin marked by
a 150 mGal gravity low formed by oblique convergence between the South American continent
(Guyana Shield) and the Caribbean arc system in
Oligocene and Miocene time (di Croce et al., Chapter 16; Flinch et al., Chapter 17). The basin is
subdivided into two sub-basins which increase in
age from east (Maturfn, Oligocene to Recent, No.
7) to west (Gu~irico, Eocene to Pliocene, No. 8).
The western extension of the foreland basins is represented by the Maracaibo basin (Late PaleoceneEocene, No. 9) (Lugo and Mann, 1995). The change
in strike of the older, western part of the foreland basin (Maracaibo, No. 9) is related to late
Neogene northward displacement of the Maracaibo
block along the fight-lateral Bocon6 fault (No. 13)
and the left-lateral Santa Marta-Bucaramanga fault
(No. 14).
15
BASINS AND MAJOR TECTONIC FEATURES
ASSOCIATED WITH THE PANAMA
ARC-SOUTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN COLLISIONAL
ZONE (SOUTHWESTERNCARIBBEAN)
C6baco basin complex
This submarine basin complex in a shelf setting
(No. 1 in Fig. 9) is an active pull-apart formed at a
left-step in the Azuero-Son~i fault zone of western
Panama (Kolarsky et al., 1995b).
Tonosi basin
This now folded and uplifted Oligocene-Miocene
turbiditic basin (No. 2) appears to have been a
forearc basin that has now become inverted as a
result of strike-slip movements along the obliqueslip margin of southwestern Panama (Kolarsky et al.,
1995b).
Riffs of the Canal area
Accreted rocks of the South America passive
margin and Great Arc of the Caribbean
These fold-thrust belts (No. 10) contain mixtures
of arc and margin-related lithologies formed during
the oblique Cenozoic collision of the arc and the
passive margin (Av6 Lallemant, 1997).
Cariaco pull-apart basin on the El Pilar fault
zone
The Cariaco pull-apart basin (No. l l) is a
1400-m-deep, closed depression in the Venezuelan
shelf at a 35-km south-step between the right-lateral
E1 Mor6n and E1 Pilar strike-slip faults. Schubert
(1984) estimated that 70 km of right-lateral motion
on the faults was necessary to produce the basin over
the last 2 million years.
South Caribbean marginal fault
This fault (No. 12) forms the deformation front
of a large accretionary wedge formed by the underthrusting of the Caribbean oceanic plateau and
its overlying sedimentary cover beneath the South
American continent (Ladd et al., 1990).
These late Neogene basins (No. 3) formed as a
consequence of diffuse east-west extension within
this topographically lowest part of the Panama Isthmus. These basins may have formed as a response
to bending of the isthmus of Panama following its
collision with northwestern South America in Late
Miocene to Early Pliocene time (Mann and Kolarsky,
1995).
San Bias 'forearc' basin
This basin (No. 4) has formed in a 'forearc'
setting above the accreted North Panama deformed
belt in late Neogene times (Reed and Silver, 1995).
Bayano-Chucanqu6 basin
This basin (No. 5) has formed in a large syncline
formed in response to the bending and strike-slip
deformation of the Isthmus of Panama following its
collision with the South America margin (Mann and
Kolarsky, 1995).
Sambfi basin
This basin (No. 6) appears to be a pull-apart basin
formed at a left-step in the left-lateral Samb6 fault
zone.
Maracaibo block
Pearl Islands basin
This triangular-shaped block of continental crust
is bounded to the east by the Bocon6 right-lateral
fault (No. 13) and to the east by the left-lateral Santa
Marta-Bucaramanga fault (Mann et al., 1990) (No.
14).
This Middle Miocene-Pleistocene basin (No. 7)
formed as a small foreland basin in front of east-dipping reverse faults of the East Panama deformed belt
(Mann and Kolarsky, 1995).
1
6
R
Colombian accretionary complex and forearc
basin
This margin (No. 8) developed in response to
eastward subduction of oceanic crust of the Nazca
plate beneath Colombia (Westbrook et al., 1995).
Atrato-San Juan basin
This basin (No. 9) formed along the approximate
suture zone between the Panama arc and the South
American continent (Bueno Salazar, 1989; Kellogg
and Vega, 1995).
MANN
Beata Ridge
The Beata Ridge (No. 4) is marked by a triangular-shaped uplift of oceanic plateau crust at the
place where the Caribbean sea is narrowest, between
northern South America and Hispaniola. Driscoll
and Diebold (Chapter 20) interpret the uplift as a
mainly relict extensional fault block related to the
formation of the Cretaceous oceanic plateau while
Mauffret and Leroy (Chapter 21) emphasize its late
Neogene uplift history on thrust faults and its role
as major tectonic boundary between the Colombian
and Venezuelan basins.
Venezuelan basin
BASINS AND MAJOR TECTONIC FEATURES
ASSOCIATED WITH THE CENTRAL CARIBBEAN
PLATE
Basins and carbonate banks of the Nicaraguan
Rise
The Nicaraguan Rise is a broad submarine swell
underlain by island arc and continental crust of the
Chortfs block that extends from northern Central
America to Jamaica and is bounded on the north by
the Cayman trough and on the south by the Hess
Escarpment (No. 1 in Fig. 10). Carbonate banks
of Cenozoic age occupy structural highs formed
by poorly understood faults with a predominantly
northeast strike. Holcombe et al. (1990) interpreted
the northeast faults as a set of left-lateral strike-slip
faults bounding a set or more northward-striking rift
basins associated in one case (San Andres trough)
with Quaternary basaltic volcanism present on the
island of San Andres (No. 2). The linear Hess Escarpment (No. 3) has been interpreted by Mann et
al. (1990) as a possible Neogene strike-slip feature
whereas others like Driscoll and Diebold (Chapter
20) have interpreted it as Cretaceous normal fault
linked to the Beata Ridge (No. 4) and to the formation of the Caribbean oceanic plateau (Fig. 2).
Colombian basin
The low-relief Colombian basin (No. 5 in Fig. 10)
is underlain by the Cretaceous Caribbean oceanic
plateau (Bowland and Rosencrantz, 1988) and is
bounded to the north by the Hess Escarpment, to
the south by the South Caribbean margin fault (Ladd
et al., 1990; No. 6), and to the east by the Beata
Ridge (No. 4). van der Hilst and Mann (1994) used
tomographic data to show that the oceanic plateau
crust of the Colombian basin is underthrust at the
South Caribbean front fault (No. 6) by a distance
of several hundred kilometers beneath the South
America margin.
The low-relief Venezuelan basin (No. 7) is a
rectangular area of oceanic plateau crust bounded on
the north by the Muertos trench, on the south by
the South Caribbean marginal fault, on the west by
the Beata Ridge, and on the east by the Aves Ridge,
the remnant volcanic arc of the Lesser Antilles. A
prominent east-west arch trends parallel to the long
axis of the basin and may be a regional flexure of the
Caribbean plate produced by its ongoing subduction
at the Muertos trough to the north and the South
Caribbean marginal fault (No. 6) to the south.
TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF THE CARIBBEANPLATE
AND ITS SEDIMENTARYBASINS
Two models for Caribbean evolution
There are two contrasting models for the platetectonic evolution of the Caribbean. The first model
most recently put forward by Frisch et al. (1992) proposes that the Caribbean region formed during the
period of 130 Ma to 80 Ma as South America moved
southeast away from North America (Fig. l lA).
Igneous upwelling in the space that formed between the two continents is thought to have produced the anomalously thick oceanic plateau crust
of the Caribbean and Central America (Kerr et al.,
1997; Diebold and Driscoll, Chapter 19; Driscoll and
Diebold, Chapter 20). This model recognizes some
strike-slip motion along the northern and southern
margins of the plate but does not view these offsets
as large enough to restore the Caribbean to a position
in the eastern Pacific.
An alternative school of thought and adopted in
the reconstructions shown in this review was first
formulated by Wilson (1966) and later elaborated
by Malfait and Dinkelman (1972), Ross and Scotese
(1988), Pindell and Barrett (1990), and others. This
mobilistic view is that the Caribbean was originally
an area of eastern Pacific Ocean floor and oceanic
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS: CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
17
Fig. 11. Two possible origins for the Caribbean. (A) The Caribbean oceanic plateau forms by the separation of North and South America
during the period 130 to 80 Ma (Frisch et al., 1992). Crosses indicate areas of continental crust. The numbers give positions of the
northern margin of South America according to Pindell and Barrett (1990). (B) The Caribbean oceanic plateau forms as normal Pacific
oceanic crust drifts over the Galapagos hotspot, is thickened in the middle and Late Cretaceous, and passes into the gap between North
and South America. The numbers give positions of the leading edge of the Caribbean arc system and oceanic plateau through time,
according to Pindell and Barrett (1990). Note that the positions of continental masses allow 'no free face' for arc migration. The 'free
face' of the Atlantic Ocean acts to channel the arc in an eastward direction.
plateau that has been rafted behind the eastwardmoving Great Arc of the Caribbean of Burke (1988)
(Fig. 11B). This area of Pacific normal ocean crust
appears to have been modified and thickened into
the present-day Caribbean oceanic plateau province
in the Cretaceous w h e n the crust drifted over the
Galapagos hotspot (Duncan and Hargraves, 1984;
Sinton et al., 1997) (Fig. l i B ) . The passage of
this area of crust from a Pacific realm to an Atlantic one is recorded by the diachronous history
of collisions b e t w e e n the Great Arc at the leading edge of the plateau and the passive margins
of North and South A m e r i c a (Pindell and Barrett,
1990). These collisions c o m m e n c e in Late Creta-
18
ceous time in northern Central America and northwestern South America and continue through to
the present-day in the northeastern and southeastern
Caribbean (Fig. 11B).
Using North A m e r i c a - S o u t h America motion to
infer Caribbean tectonics
Because magnetic anomalies and fracture zones
nearly as old as the times of separation between
North and South America have been mapped in the
Atlantic Ocean, the motions of North and South
America with respect to Africa can be fully described using the vectorial closure condition required
by a three-plate system (Pindell and Barrett, 1990;
MUller et al., Chapter 2). Improved maps of Atlantic fracture zones using Geosat gravity data by
Mtfller et al. (Chapter 2) has allowed them to more
precisely reconstruct the motion history of the two
Americas. A summary of the Jurassic to recent path
of two points on northern South America relative to
a fixed North America using the data of MUller et
al. (Chapter 2) is shown on Fig. 12. This diagram
illustrates the steadily widening space between the
two Americas that was presumably filled by oceanic
crust of Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age. This expanse of crust known as the proto-Caribbean Ocean
is thought to have been consumed by the Great Arc
of the Caribbean from the Late Cretaceous to Recent
time. Remnants of the proto-Caribbean Ocean are
preserved only as small fragments within rocks of
the Great Arc (Montgomery and Pessagno, Chapter 10).
The vector diagram in Fig. 12 can be used to
make general inferences about the regional deformational style of the intervening Caribbean plate. For
example, from the Late Jurassic to Maastrichtian,
one would expect a generally divergent tectonic
style to pervade much of this region and from
Maastrichtian to the Present one would expect a
convergent or strike-slip style to be present (Fig. 12).
However, this direct dependence of Caribbean deformational style on the relative motion of North
and South America assumes that motion is taken
up along a single plate boundary, such as during Jurassic separation. Studies including Marton
and Buffler (Chapter 3) show that even the young
North America-South America Plate boundary during Jurassic time was multi-branched and involved
the motion of an intervening microcontinent, the
Yucat~in block. As the gap between the Americas
widened, later Cretaceous-Cenozoic relative plate
motions acted across at least two plate boundaries
(northern and southern Caribbean arc or strike-slip
boundaries). Therefore, the North America-South
America motions shown on Fig. 12 are only indirectly manifested in Caribbean deformation.
R MANN
Relative motion path of South America relative
to North America
The path shows South America moving away
from North America during the Jurassic through the
Late Cretaceous, a process that led to the formation
of ocean floor on the sites of the Caribbean and
Gulf of Mexico. The orientation of Mesozoic graben
is generally perpendicular to this direction except
in regions affected by the independent rotation of
the Yucatan block (Marton and Buffler, Chapter 3).
While the age of most circum-Caribbean rifts is
confined to the Jurassic, the path shows continued
separation of the Americas up through the Maastrichtian. Numerous geological studies such as those
by Pessagno et al. (Chapter 5), Marton and Buffler
(Chapter 3), Masaferro and Eberli (Chapter 7), Scott
and Finch (Chapter 6), and di Croce et al. (Chapter
16) show that the Cretaceous was a time of carbonate
passive margin formation atop these early rift structures. These bank margins probably fronted large
expanses of Jurassic and Cretaceous ocean crust that
formed following the separation of the two plates in
Late Jurassic-earliest Cretaceous time.
The behavior of the Great Arc of the Caribbean
in response to the convergence or strike-slip motion
of North and South America during the period of
71 Ma to the present-day cannot be predicted with
accuracy given that these larger plate motions will
only be indirectly manifested across multiple strikeslip and subduction Caribbean boundaries. Mann et
al. (1995) and Gordon et al. (1997) propose that
the trend and direction of the Great Arc during the
Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic is governed mainly
the direction of a free face, or area of subductable
oceanic crust in front of the moving arc. For example, the presence of the Bahamas Platform led to
arc collision and reorientation of the arc to subduct
Atlantic oceanic crust in a more eastward direction.
MUller et al. (Chapter 2) propose that 200-300 km of
post-Early Miocene north-south convergence across
the Caribbean plate may have led to significant underthrusting of the Caribbean plate beneath North
and South America and may have modified existing
sedimentary basins.
MAIN PHASES OF CARIBBEAN BASIN DEVELOPMENT
WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF NORTH
AMERICA-SOUTH AMERICA RELATIVE MOTION
HISTORY
Using the second plate-tectonic model shown
in Fig. liB, five main phases of basin evolution
can be predicted for the margins of the North and
South America plates. These phases include pre-rift
phase, Late Jurassic rift phase, Cretaceous passive
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS: CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
19
Fig. 12. Relative plate motion vectors of three points of northern South America with respect to a fixed North America based on data
presented by M~iller et al. in Chapter 2 of this volume. The position of South America with respect to North America provides a
framework in which to base key events in Caribbean evolution such as the entry and diachronous collision of the Great Arc of the
Caribbean. Points in millions of years along the vectors correspond to the ages of plate reconstructions give in Figs. 13-25 of this chapter.
margin phase, Late Cretaceous-Recent arc-passive
margin collisional phase, and late Cenozoic strikeslip phase. I subdivide thirteen plate reconstructions
of the Caribbean based on the plate parameters of
Miiller et al. (Chapter 2) into these four phases.
Several Cretaceous and Cenozoic structural phases
characterize the overriding Great Arc and the adjacent
oceanic plateau and Chortfs block. For example, the
oceanic plateau undergoes a two-phase Cretaceous
volcanic and stretching event (Driscoll and Diebold,
Chapter 20), the Great Arc may have experienced a
subduction polarity reversal (L6bron and Perfit, 1994;
Draper et al., 1996; Kerr et al., 1997; Montgomery
and Pessagno, Chapter 10) and the Chortfs block
experienced a Late Cretaceous folding and faulting
event (Scott and Finch, Chapter 6).
Pre-rift phase
Plate reconstructions such as those by Pindell and
Barrett (1990), Marton and Buffler (Chapter 3) and
Pszcz6tkowski (Chapter 4) leave no space for the
Caribbean-Gulf of Mexico region in its present position when South America is closed up against North
America to reform western Pangea in pre-Late Jurassic time (Fig. 13). Prior to rifting of the Americas
in the Middle Jurassic, three crustal age provinces are
present in the future area of rifting between North and
South America shown in Fig. 13. These provinces include: (1) Pan-African crustal age province of Africa
and Brazil; (2) Grenville crustal age province of
North and South America that includes a possible continuation through the Oaxaca area of southern Mexico and the Chortfs block (Renne et al.,
1989; Hutson et al., 1998); and (3) Guyana Shield
of pre-Grenville age (> 1.2 Ga) of northern South
America. The Yucat~in block fills the central part
of the Gulf of Mexico and is presumably underlain
by a prong of the Appalachian-Marathon-Ouachita
orogenic belt (Marton and Buffler, Chapter 3).
Late Jurassic rift phase
Rifts of Late Jurassic age in the Caribbean form
part of a band of rifts associated with the early opening of the central and northern Atlantic that crudely
follow orogenic grains from the North Atlantic to
Guyana. By Oxfordian time, rifts are active along
the northern Gulf of Mexico, the southeastern Gulf
of Mexico (Marton and Buffler, Chapter 3), the Bahama Platform (Masaferro and Eberli, Chapter 7),
the northeastern margin of South America (di Croce
et al., Chapter 16), and the northwestern margin of
South America (Eva et al., 1989; Lugo and Mann,
1995) (Fig. 14). Rifts which extend southward along
the western margin of South America may be related
20
P. M A N N
Fig. 13. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 180 Ma (Bajocian). Key to abbreviations: M S M = Mohave-Sonora megashear; TMVB
-- Trans-Mexican volcanic belt; E A F Z -- eastern Andean fault zone.
Fig. 14. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 156 Ma (Oxfordian, magnetic anomaly M29). Gray areas represent oceanic crust of
normal thickness. Stippled areas indicate rifted areas. Key to abbreviations: P C - proto-Caribbean oceanic crust (dark line represents
speculative position of spreading ridge)" N B F Z -- northern Bahamas fracture zone; M S M -- Mohave-Sonora megashear; T M V B =
Trans-Mexican volcanic belt; E A F Z = eastern Andean fault zone.
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS: CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
21
Fig. 15. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 145 Ma (Tithonian, magnetic anomaly M19). Dots in Atlantic Ocean represent
magnetic anomaly and fracture zone picks by Mt~ller et al. (Chapter 2) based on interpretation of Geosat gravity images. Key to
abbreviations: PC = proto-Caribbean oceanic crust (dark line represents speculative position of spreading ridge); M S M = MohaveSonora megashear; TMVB = Trans-Mexican volcanic belt; EAFZ = eastern Andean fault zone.
to back-arc rifting produced by subduction at that
margin. The widening gap between North and South
America was presumably occupied by oceanic crust
generated at a proto-Caribbean spreading ridge. This
early oceanic corridor between the Atlantic and Pacific widens through continued rifting and oceanic
spreading into the Tithonian (Fig. 15).
the Chortfs block occupied a southern extension of
Precambrian and Paleozoic orogenic belts in Mexico and was subsequently displaced eastwards by
strike-slip faults in the Cenozoic (Av6 Lallemant and
Gordon, Chapter 8; Manton and Manton, Chapter 9)
(Fig. 16).
Cretaceous passive margin phase
Late Cretaceous-Recent arc-passive margin
collisional phase
By earliest Cretaceous time, rifting had ceased,
the Yucatan block had rotated to its present-day
position, and a post-rift passive margin section composed mainly of carbonate rocks had blanketed the
rift topography in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico (Marton and Buffler, Chapter 3), the Bahamas
Platform (Masaferro and Eberli, Chapter 7), the
northeastern margin of South America (di Croce et
al., Chapter 16; Babb and Mann, Chapter 18), and
the northwestern margin of South America (Lugo
and Mann, 1995). These passive margins enjoyed
open ocean circulation and probably fronted a protoCaribbean oceanic basin that was several hundred
kilometers wide (Fig. 16). It is interesting to note
that the Chortfs block experienced a similar rift and
passive margin history to the above intra-Caribbean
margins (Scott and Finch, Chapter 6). Presumably
By Late Cretaceous time, the Great Arc of the
Caribbean and its adjacent oceanic plateau province
was colliding with the passive margin of northwestern South America and the southern margin of
northern Central America (Pindell and Barrett, 1990;
Kerr et al., 1997) (Fig. 17). In northwestern South
America, extensive areas of the plateau and arc rocks
accreted to the continental cratonic rocks of northwestern South America (Kerr et al., 1997). In these
areas, ages of rocks of the Great Arc extend back to
the Early Cretaceous but ages of the oceanic plateau
are generally confined to the Santonian (Kerr et al.,
1997; Sinton et al., 1997). Diebold and Driscoll
(Chapter 19) and Driscoll and Diebold (Chapter 20)
present evidence that the oceanic plateau eruption
event was a two-phase event with the Santonian
event probably corresponding to the younger event.
22
P. M A N N
Fig. 16. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 118 Ma (Aptian, magnetic anomaly C34n). Key to abbreviations: M S M = MohaveSonora megashear; TMVB = Trans-Mexican volcanic belt; EAFZ -- eastern Andean fault zone.
Fig. 17. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 83 Ma (Campanian, magnetic anomaly C34n). Key to abbreviation: EAFZ = eastern
Andean fault zone.
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS: CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
By Maastrichtian time, subsidence of the Sepur
foreland basin was ending as the Chortfs block was
sutured to the area of southern Mexico and the Yucatan block (Fig. 18) and the Great Arc was migrating
to the northeast towards its eventual collision with the
Bahama Platform in the Late Paleocene and Eocene
(Fig. 19). In Paleocene time, the end of the arc moved
along a complex strike-slip zone at the eastern edge
of the Yucatan Peninsula (Lara, 1993) and opened
the Yucatan back-arc basin in its wake (Rosencrantz,
1990) (Fig. 19). In northwestern South America, a
Maastrichtian foreland basin associated with the accretion of oceanic plateau material widened and began to affect the area of western Venezuela (Pindell
and Barrett, 1990) (Fig. 18). These foreland basin deposits will later become overprinted by the effects of
the late Neogene collision of the Panama arc with
northwestern South America.
By Early Eocene, arc-continent collision was
complete in western Cuba and collision proceeded
in a diachronous manner along the edge of the
Bahamas Platform (Gordon et al., 1997; Masaferro
and Eberli, Chapter 7) (Figs. 19 and 20). This
diachronous collision accompanied transfer of microplates from the Caribbean plate to the North
America Plate in a clockwise fashion as forward
progress of the Great Arc was halted by its collision
with the Bahamas Platform (Mann et al., 1995).
A thin foreland basin formed between the collision
zone and the Bahamas carbonate platform (Hempton and Barros, 1993). Similarly, in northern South
America, collision ended in Eocene time in the Lake
Maracaibo area of western Venezuela and proceeded
in a diachronous manner eastward along the northern
margin of South America in Middle to Late Eocene
time (Fig. 20). Initiation of oceanic spreading in the
Cayman trough in Middle Eocene time may be the
result of a change in the direction of the Great Arc
from a northeastward to an eastward direction to
move around the salient formed by the southeastern Bahama Platform (Mann et al., 1995). By Late
Oligocene, the zone of active collision is in the present-day area of Puerto Rico on the northern plate
boundary and eastern Venezuela on the southern
boundary (Fig. 21).
Late Cenozoic strike-slip phase
The Miocene to Recent period of Caribbean history corresponds to its strike-slip phase since by this
time the arc-continent collisional zones have lengthened and converted into long strike-slip faults along
the northern and southern edges of the Caribbean
plate. During the Middle Miocene, the Cocos and
Nazca plates ruptured along the Galapagos rift probably as a response to simultaneous subduction in two
directions beneath the Middle America arc to the
23
north and the Colombian trench to the south (Wortel and Cloetingh, 1981) (Figs. 22 and 23). By Late
Miocene, localized convergence between the eastward-moving Caribbean plate and the southeastern
extension of the Bahama Platform led to thrusting and
topographic uplift in Hispaniola (Mann et al., Chapter 12; de Zoeten et al., Chapter 11) (Fig. 24). Along
the southeastern margin of the plate, tectonic activity
involved the Trinidad area (Babb and Mann, Chapter
18; di Croce et al., Chapter 16; Flinch et al., Chapter
17) (Fig. 24). By Late Pliocene, the margins of the
Caribbean had reached its present-day configuration
(Fig. 25). Two important tectonic and paleoceanographic events of this time was closure of the Panama
seaway by collision of the Panama arc against northwestern South America (Kellogg and Vega, 1995:
Mann et al., 1995) (Fig. 25) and the collision of the
Cocos Ridge with southern Central America by about
1.6 Ma. The Panama arc collisional event may have
accelerated the northwestward expulsion of the Maracaibo block into the Caribbean.
FUTURE WORK ON CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY
BASINS
To conclude this review, I would like to leave
the reader with some large-scale Caribbean tectonic
problems that could be addressed by future studies
of Caribbean sedimentary basins.
Pacific vs. in situ origin of the Caribbean
The problem of the origin of the Caribbean is
by no means solved despite the Pacific-origin approach that I have followed in this introduction and
in the tectonic reconstructions. There are several
problem areas for the Caribbean origin problem.
First, North America-South America relative plate
motion history (Mtiller et al., Chapter 2) (Fig. 12)
only indirectly bears on the position of this intervening Caribbean plate and Great Arc through time.
Second, paleomagnetic studies in the Caribbean are
handicapped by several factors: (1) the problem
of distinguishing large-scale plate-tectonic rotation
from local structural rotation about vertical axes and
apparent tectonic rotation (cf. MacDonald, 1980, for
a discussion of paleomagnetic data from the Chortfs
block); (2) the inability of paleomagnetism to address longitudinal changes in plate position of the
type assumed for an eastward-moving Caribbean
Great Arc and oceanic plateau in Cenozoic time;
and (3) large error limits on existing data (Gose,
1985). And, third, studies of individual strike-slip
offsets are problematic because, as shown on the reconstructions, these faults form somewhat late in the
Caribbean tectonic history and therefore represent
24
P. M A N N
Fig. 18. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 71 Ma (Maastrichtian, magnetic anomaly C32n.2n). Key to abbreviation:
eastern Andean fault zone.
Fig. 19. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 55.9 Ma (Early Eocene, magnetic anomaly C25n). Key to abbreviations:
back-arc basin; G B -- Grenada back-arc basin; M B = Maracaibo foreland basin.
YB
EAFZ
--
= Yucat~in
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS" CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
25
Fig. 20. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 41.3 Ma (Middle Eocene, magnetic anomaly C19n). Key to abbreviations:
Maracaibo foreland basin; E A F Z = eastern Andean fault zone.
MB
=
Fig. 21. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 25.5 Ma (Late Oligocene, magnetic anomaly C7An). Key to abbreviation:
Gufirico foreland basin.
GB
=
26
P. M A N N
Fig. 22. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 15.1 Ma (Middle Miocene, magnetic anomaly C32n.2n). Key to abbreviations: G B =
Gu~rico foreland basin; M B = Maturfn foreland basin.
Fig. 23. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 11.5 Ma (latest Middle Miocene, magnetic anomaly C5r.2n). Key to abbreviations: G B
-- Gu(trico foreland basin; M B = Maturfn foreland basin.
27
CARIBBEAN SEDIMENTARY BASINS" CLASSIFICATION AND TECTONIC SETTING
Fig. 24. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 9.2 Ma (Late Miocene, magnetic anomaly C4Ar.2n). Key to abbreviations:
Gufirico foreland basin; M B = Maturfn foreland basin.
GB
--
Fig. 25. Reconstruction of the Caribbean region at 3.1 Ma (Late Pliocene, magnetic anomaly C2An.2n). Key to abbreviation:
Maturfn foreland basin.
MB
=
28
only a small part of the total Caribbean displacement.
There are several promising new approaches for
study of the origin of the Caribbean plate that can
augment traditional plate reconstruction and paleomagnetic methods. Paleoenvironmental studies such
as those by Pessagno et al. (Chapter 5) attempt
to define changes in the paleolatitude of terranes
using macro- and micropaleontologic data. Montgomery and Pessagno (Chapter 10) point out key
indicator rocks, such as red cherts, that can be used
to distinguish a Pacific vs. Atlantic environment of
deposition. Finally, geochemical and high-resolution
dating of igneous and metamorphic rocks of rocks of
the Great Arc and oceanic plateau (e.g., Sinton et al.,
1997) or the grains in sedimentary rocks from the
allochthonous areas (e.g., Hutson et al., 1998) allows
better constraints on plate reconstructions.
Age and environments of the Caribbean oceanic
plateau
Diebold and Driscoll (Chapter 19) and Driscoll
and Diebold (Chapter 20) present data showing
a two-stage Cretaceous evolution of the plateau
and suggest that existing DSDP and ODP dated
drill samples from the plateau may constrain only
the later, smaller plateau-building event. Further
outcrop studies and deep ocean drilling are needed
to constrain this hypothesis.
Polarity reversal of the Caribbean arc
Montgomery and Pessagno (Chapter 10) note two
types of accreted sedimentary material in the Great
Arc of the Caribbean: Pacific-derived material accreted when the arc was west or southwest-facing
and Atlantic-type material accreted when the arc was
east or northeastward-facing as it is today. Structural
and stratigraphic outcrop studies are needed to confirm the existence and age of the proposed Early
Cretaceous arc polarity reversal discussed by these
authors and previous workers like L6bron and Perfit
(1994) and Draper et al. (1996).
Origin of Caribbean ophiolites
Extensive ophiolites were obducted during collision of the Great Arc with the passive margins
of North and South America in northern Central
America, the Greater Antilles, and northern South
America. Gealey (1980) proposed that these ophiolites represent the basement of the forearc basement
of the Great Arc. Other possible origins for the
ophiolites include proto-Caribbean oceanic crust involved in the arc-continent collision and Caribbean
oceanic plateau crust (Kerr et al., 1997). The overly-
P. MANN
ing and interbedded sedimentary rocks could provide
important clues to the origin of the ophiolites and
their paleolatitudes through time.
Triggering of back-arc basins formation
Depth to basement calculations and heat-flow
measurements for the Yucat~in (Rosencrantz, 1990)
and Grenada back-arc basins (Bird et al., Chapter 15)
indicate that both basins formed rapidly over a short
time interval in the Paleogene. Further geophysical
work and deep-sea drilling is needed to confirm
this history and understand why this basins opened
rapidly and then became dormant despite continued
subduction beneath the Great Arc.
Diachronous arc-continent collision and
termination of arc activity
The timing of this event summarized on Fig. 11B
could be improved through careful biostratigraphic
and stratigraphic studies as done by Bralower and
Iturralde-Vinent (1997) in Cuba and several of the
papers in this volume.
Amount of allochthoneity of Caribbean arcs
The amount of overthrusting of the Great Arc
over the passive margins of North and South America is not well understood because deep seismic data
has not been attempted over the arc-continent collision zones. If the arc is far-traveled on a predominantly unmetamorphosed passive margin sequence,
potential hydrocarbon deposits may exist at depth
in areas where crystalline rocks are present at the
surface.
Driving forces of Caribbean plate motion
Mann et al. (1995) and Mann (1996) proposed
that the Caribbean plate is driven as a response to
dense oceanic slabs sinking beneath the Great Arc
at the leading edge of the plate. The direction of
the arc movement is therefore always oriented in the
direction of oceanic crust or the 'free face'. However, MUller et al. (Chapter 2) have noted that the
Caribbean plate remains fixed in a mantle reference
frame since Middle Eocene time. For a stationary Caribbean plate, North America-South America
post-Eocene north-south convergence rather than the
presence of an oceanic free face may be the dominant plate-driving force affecting the Caribbean.
GPS-based geodetic studies spanning the Caribbean
plate could be used to test these differing dynamic
scenarios.
C A R I B B E A N SEDIMENTARY BASINS: C L A S S I F I C A T I O N AND T E C T O N I C SETTING
Nature and driving forces of internal Caribbean
plate deformation
Diebold and Driscoll (Chapter 19) and Driscoll
and Diebold (Chapter 10) propose that internal deformation of the Caribbean plate in the Colombian
and Venezuelan basins and along the Beata Ridge
and Hess Escarpment is a response to divergent
deformation associated with the formation of the
Cretaceous Caribbean oceanic plateau. In their view,
modern escarpments on the seafloor are largely relict
features that lack significant neotectonic deformation. In contrast, Mauffret and Leroy (Chapter 21)
propose that the scarps in this region reflect internal
disruption of the Caribbean plate along the line of
the Beata Ridge. Faulting reflects mainly shortening in this intra-plate zone of deformation. Continued geophysical studies, reexamination of existing
data, and GPS-based geodetic studies spanning the
Caribbean plate are needed to distinguish these two
ideas.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Dietmar MUller for providing the plate information to create the reconstructions in Figs. 13-25 and Lisa Gahagan and the
UTIG PLATES project for creating the reconstructions. UTIG contribution 1422.
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