Everything about Caribbean Plate totally explained
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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, and the
Cocos Plate. These borders are regions of intense
seismic activity, including frequent
earthquakes, occasional
tsunamis, and
volcanic eruptions.
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, and
Honduras in Central America, eastward through the
Cayman trough on south of the southeast coast of
Cuba, and just north of
La Española,
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.
The eastern boundary is a
subduction zone, but since the boundary between the North and South American Plates in the Atlantic is as yet undefined, it's unclear which one, or possibly both, is descending under the Caribbean Plate. Subduction forms the volcanic islands of the
Lesser Antilles island 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 Pelée on
Martinique,
La Grande Soufrière on
Guadeloupe,
Soufrière Saint Vincent on
Saint Vincent, and the submarine volcano
Kick-'em-Jenny which lies about 10 km north of
Grenada.
Along the geologically complex southern boundary the Caribbean Plate interacts with the South American Plate forming
Barbados,
Trinidad (both on the South American Plate) and
Tobago (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.
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Origin
There are two contending theories as to the origin of the Caribbean Plate.
One holds that it's 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 didn't 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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Caribbean Plate'.
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