This abstract was published in the Transactions of the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, in San Francisco, California, T72C-06, Copyright 1996 by American Geophysical Union.

Regional Pattern of Neotectonic Deformation of the Late Tertiary Carbonate Platform of the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic

Jean-Paul Van Gestel  Department of Geological Sciences and Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA, Paul Mann  Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin, 4412 Spicewood Springs Road, Bldg. 600, Austin, TX 78759-8500, USA, Nancy R. Grindlay  Department of Earth Sciences, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC 28403-3297, USA, James F. Dolan  Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740, USA.

An Oligocene-early Pliocene carbonate platform covers an extensive region of the oblique-slip Caribbean-North America plate boundary in and around the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Mona Passage, and the Dominican Republic. Integration of onshore data compiled from previous studies and the results of single channel seismic reflection data collected by the RV Maurice Ewing in 1996 improve the identification and correlation of this remarkable carbonate datum throughout the region. Similarities in the present-day elevation and deformational style of this unit, whose age ranges and depositional water depths are generally known from onland studies, are used to subdivide the NE edge of the Caribbean plate into five structural provinces that record post-early Pliocene deformation related to oblique subduction and strike-slip faulting:

These five structural provinces are interpreted as the result of east to west, Miocene to recent, time-transgressive deformation related to the oblique subduction of the southeastern margin of the Bahama Platform beneath the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Drowning of provinces 1 and 2 reflect tectonic erosion and collapse of the overriding plate as the SE Bahama Platform migrated from east to west. Province 3 represents a transitional area between a previously collided area in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and the actively colliding and uplifting area in Hispaniola. Provinces 4 and 5 represents the area of ongoing collision between the SE Bahama Platform and Hispaniola.

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