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Caribbean plate and faultlines
Caribbean Plate
Convergent Boundary - Caribbean Volcanic Arc " Caribbean Plate"
The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic
plate underlying Central America and the
Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South
America.
Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers (1.2 million
square miles) in area, the Caribbean Plate
borders the North American Plate, the South
American Plate, the Nazca Plate and the Cocos
Plate. These borders are regions of intense
seismic activity, including frequent earthquakes,
occasional tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions.
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Boundary types
The northern boundary with the North American plate is a transform or strike-slip boundary which runs
from the border area of Belize, Guatemala (Motagua Fault), and Honduras in Central America, eastward
through the Cayman trough on south of the southeast coast of Cuba, and just north of Hispaniola,
Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Part of the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean
(roughly 8,400 meters), lies along this border. The Puerto Rico trench is at a complex transition from the
subduction boundary to the south and the transform boundary to the west.
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Caribbean Plate.
The eastern boundary is a subduction zone, the
Lesser Antilles subduction zone, where oceanic
crust of the South American Plate is being
subducted under the Caribbean Plate.
Subduction forms the volcanic islands of the
Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc from the Virgin Islands
in the north to the islands off the coast of
Venezuela in the south. This boundary contains
seventeen active volcanoes, most notably
Soufriere Hills on Montserrat;, Mount Pele on
Martinique; La Grande Soufrire on Guadeloupe;
Soufrire Saint Vincent on Saint Vincent; and the
submarine volcano Kick-'em-Jenny which lies
about 10 km north of Grenada. Large historical
earthquakes in 1839 and 1843 in this region are possibly megathrust earthquakes.
Along the geologically complex southern boundary, the Caribbean Plate interacts with the South
American Plate forming Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago (all on the Caribbean Plate), and islands off the
coast of Venezuela (including the Leeward Antilles) and Colombia. This boundary is in part the result of
transform faulting along with thrust faulting and some subduction. The rich Venezuelan petroleum fields
possibly result from this complex plate interaction.
The western portion of the plate is occupied by Central America. The Cocos Plate in the Pacific Ocean is
subducted beneath the Caribbean Plate, just off the western coast of Central America. This subduction
forms the volcanoes of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, also known as the Central
America Volcanic Arc.
Origin
There are two contending theories as to the origin of the Caribbean Plate.
One holds that it is a large igneous province that formed in the Pacific Ocean tens of millions of years
ago. As the Atlantic Ocean widened, North America and South America were pushed westward,
separated for a time by oceanic crust. The Pacific Ocean floor subducted under this oceanic crust
between the continents. The Caribbean Plate drifted into the same area, but as it was less dense
(although thicker) than the surrounding oceanic crust, it did not subduct, but rather overrode the ocean
floor, continuing to move eastward relative to North America and South America. With the formation of
the Isthmus of Panama 3 million years ago, it ultimately lost its connection to the Pacific.
A more recent theory asserts that the Caribbean Plate came into being from an Atlantic hotspot which no
longer exists. This theory points to evidence of the absolute motion of the Caribbean Plate which
indicates that it moves westward, not east, and that its apparent eastward motion is only relative to the
motions of the North American Plate and the South American Plate.
More Information About :
- Plate Tectonics Map
- Plate Boundary Map
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- Note : The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Wikipedia
- Plate Boundary By : USGS