THE CARIBBEAN TECTONIC MÉLANGE: A RECORD OF RIFTING, DRIFTING, ARC REVERSAL, RIDGE SUBDUCTION, LIP GENERATION, PASSIVE TO ACTIVE MARGIN CONVERSION, TERRANE MIGRATION AND OBDUCTION, TRENCH ROLLBACK AND INTRA-ARC SPREADING, PULL-APART OPENING, ARC-CONTINENT COLLISION, AND TRENCH-TRENCH COLLISION

The Pacific Origin model of Caribbean (CA) evolution has evolved itself since the 70's, as examined and integrated here. The model holds that Mesozoic drifting between NA and SA created a “Proto-Caribbean Seaway” that was later subducted beneath the Pacific derived Caribbean Plate during late K/Cenozoic diachronous relative motion. Details and recent refinements are: 1, Yucatán Block rotated CCW during Late J-Early K drift between NA and SA; 2, CA-American motion is due to American westward drift (mantle frame) engulfing a fixed CA Plate since Albian; 3, this relative motion began by Aptian as shown by HP ages in the CA forearc; 4, Galapagos Hotspot did not cause the Caribbean LIP; 5, Proto-Caribbean seafloor spreading continued from Albian to Campanian during Caribbean advance, requiring ridge subduction whose slab gap is proposed to be the conduit through which the Caribbean LIP was extruded from the Proto-Caribbean (Atlantic) spreading cell; 6, the northern SA passive margin was converted in Maastrichtian to a S-dipping, Proto-Caribbean subduction zone to accommodate Cenozoic NA-SA convergence; 7, intra-arc extension formed Yucatán and Grenada Basins as the CA plate expanded spatially after passing through the Yucatán-Guajíra bottleneck, both driven by Proto-Caribbean rollback; 8, E-diachronous arc-continent collision occurred along the CA-NA boundary, while E-diachronous trench-trench collision occurred along the SAmargin; 9, Cayman Trough pull-apart has defined the NA-CA boundary since Eocene obduction of Cuban terrane on the Bahamas; 10, ESE-subduction of the CA beneath Colombia has produced a flat-slab whose coupling has mobilised the overlying Andes, driving the crust ENE by >100 km; 11, since Oligocene, the convergent component of CA-SA motion has been taken up by polarity reversal from the Lara Nappe Belt to the South Caribbean Foldbelt; and 12, Late Miocene-Recent Trinidadian sedimentation records a history of accommodation space balanced by SA rollback (subsidence) and orogenic shortening (uplift) in a transcurrent “bow-wave” model. These processes are integrated in plate boundary diagrams defining the current state of evolution of the Caribbean evolutionary model; details of the southern CA history are being further deciphered by NSF BOLIVAR program.