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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
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Abstract
2003. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
The Conflicting Paleontologic versus Stratigraphic Record of the Formation of the Caribbean Seaway
Manuel A. Iturralde-Vinent
Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Havana, Cuba
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to thank Zulma Gasparini (Natural History Museum, La Plata) for sharing relevant paleontological data, and for extensive discussions about the historical biogeography of the Jurassic marine reptiles. Lisa Gahagan and Larry Lawver (University of Texas at Austin) provided access to the program PLATES for the plate-tectonic reconstruction of the Caribbean. Support for field and laboratory research for this paper in the Greater Antilles and Argentina was provided by grants 6001/97, 6009/97, and 6984/1 from the National Geographic Society, the American Museum of Natural History, the Institute for Geophysics and the Institute for Latin American Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Cuba, and other sources.
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a set of paleogeographic maps that illustrate the formation and evolution of the Caribbean from latest Triassic to latest Jurassic. Stratigraphic data and plate-tectonic models indicate that the Caribbean first evolved as a system of latest Triassic–Middle Jurassic rift valleys in west-central Pangea. Probably since the Bajocian, but certainly since the Oxfordian, it became a marine seaway connecting western Tethys with the eastern Pacific. In contrast, abundant paleontological data strongly suggest that the seaway across west-central Pangea opened during the Early Jurassic (Hettangian-Pliensbachian), which data conflict with the stratigraphic data. This contradiction between paleontology (biogeographic interpretations) and stratigraphy (paleogeographic interpretation) reveals our insufficient knowledge about the Mesozoic geology of west-central Pangea.
This paper is a contribution to IUGS/UNESCO IGCP Project 433.
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