EVOLUTION OF THE NORTHERN PORTION OF THE CARIBBEAN PLATE: PACIFIC ORIGIN TO BAHAMIAN COLLISION

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.