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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. 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 along the Swan Islands Transform Fault before joining the southern boundary of the Gonâve Microplate. East of the Mid-Cayman Rise this continues as the Walton fault zone and the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone into eastern Hispaniola. From there it continues i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Tectonic Plates
This is a list of tectonic plates on Earth's surface. Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth's crust and uppermost mantle, together referred to as the lithosphere. The plates are around thick and consist of two principal types of material: oceanic crust (also called '' sima'' from silicon and magnesium) and continental crust (''sial'' from silicon and aluminium). The composition of the two types of crust differs markedly, with mafic basaltic rocks dominating oceanic crust, while continental crust consists principally of lower-density felsic granitic rocks. Current plates Geologists generally agree that the following tectonic plates currently exist on Earth's surface with roughly definable boundaries. Tectonic plates are sometimes subdivided into three fairly arbitrary categories: ''major'' (or ''primary'') ''plates'', ''minor'' (or ''secondary'') ''plates'', and ''microplates'' (or ''tertiary plates''). Major plates These plates comprise the bulk of the continents an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bathymetry Of The Northeast Corner Of The Caribbean Plate Showing The Major Faults And Plate Boundaries
Bathymetry (; ) is the study of underwater depth of ocean floors (''seabed topography''), lake floors, or river floors. In other words, bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry or topography. The first recorded evidence of water depth measurements are from Ancient Egypt over 3000 years ago. Bathymetric (or hydrographic) charts are typically produced to support safety of surface or sub-surface navigation, and usually show seafloor relief or terrain as contour lines (called depth contours or isobaths) and selected depths ('' soundings''), and typically also provide surface navigational information. Bathymetric maps (a more general term where navigational safety is not a concern) may also use a Digital Terrain Model and artificial illumination techniques to illustrate the depths being portrayed. The global bathymetry is sometimes combined with topography data to yield a global relief model. Paleobathymetry is the study of past underwater depths. Seabed topography ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated territory of the United States. It is located in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately southeast of Miami, Florida, between the Dominican Republic and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and includes the eponymous main island and several smaller islands, such as Mona, Culebra, and Vieques. It has roughly 3.2 million residents, and its capital and most populous city is San Juan. Spanish and English are the official languages of the executive branch of government, though Spanish predominates. Puerto Rico was settled by a succession of indigenous peoples beginning 2,000 to 4,000 years ago; these included the Ortoiroid, Saladoid, and Taíno. It was then colonized by Spain following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1493. Puerto Ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hispaniola
Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the region's second largest in area, after the island of Cuba. The island is divided into two separate nations: the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic (48,445 km2, 18,705 sq mi) to the east and the French/Haitian Creole-speaking Haiti (27,750 km2, 10,710 sq mi) to the west. The only other divided island in the Caribbean is Saint Martin, which is shared between France ( Saint Martin) and the Netherlands (Sint Maarten). Hispaniola is the site of one of the first European settlements in the Americas, La Navidad (1492–1493), as well as the first proper town, La Isabela (1493–1500), and the first permanent settlement, the current capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo (est. 1498). These settlements were founded succe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enriquillo–Plantain Garden Fault Zone
The Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone (EPGFZ or EPGZ) is a system of active coaxial left lateral-moving strike slip faults which runs along the southern side of the island of Hispaniola, where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located. The EPGFZ is named for Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic where the fault zone emerges, and extends across the southern portion of Hispaniola through the Caribbean to the region of the Plantain Garden River in Jamaica. Geology The EPGFZ shares approximately half of the relative motion between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates with the Septentrional-Oriente fault zone which runs along the northern side of Hispaniola. Both faults merge into the Cayman Trench to the west. The fault accommodates about 20.6±1.66 millimeters of lateral motion per year (mm/yr). Additionally, a component of compression is present as the North American Plate pushes toward the southwest. This results in vertical deformation manifest in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walton Fault Zone
The Walton fault zone is a major active left lateral (sinistral) strike-slip fault, forming part of the southern boundary to the Cayman Trough. It extends from the Mid-Cayman Rise spreading center in the west to Jamaica in the east. It has a total length of about 360 km and is formed of several sub-parallel strands. Together with the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone it forms the southern boundary of the Gonâve Microplate. It is associated with only moderate earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...s with magnitudes of less than 6. References {{Reflist Strike-slip faults Geology of the Caribbean ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mid-Cayman Rise
The Mid-Cayman Rise or Mid-Cayman Spreading Center is a relatively short (110 km long) divergent plate boundary in the middle of the Cayman Trough. It forms part of a dominantly transform boundary that is part of the southern margin to the North American Plate. It is an ultra-slow spreading center with an opening rate of 15–17 mm per year. Formation The Mid-Cayman Rise developed during the Eocene when the northern part of the Caribbean Plate collided with the Bahamas Platform, forcing the southern boundary to propagate southwards. This boundary initially formed as two strike-slip faults with a large left-stepping offset between them, generating a pull-apart basin. Continuing movement on the boundary and extension within the pull-apart led to the formation of an area of oceanic crust containing a north-south trending spreading center that remains active to the present day. When the spreading center formed, all the displacement on the Swan Islands Transform Fault ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gonâve Microplate
Gonave may refer to: *Gulf of Gonâve *Gonâve Island * Gonâve Microplate See also *Gonaïves Gonaïves (; ht, Gonayiv, ) is a List of communes of Haiti, commune in northern Haiti, and the capital of the Artibonite (department), Artibonite Departments of Haiti, department of Haiti. It has a population of about 300,000 people, but current ... {{Geodis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swan Islands Transform Fault
The Swan Islands Transform Fault is an active left-lateral (sinistral) strike-slip fault zone that forms part of the boundary between the Caribbean Plate and the North American Plate. It runs along the southern boundary of the Cayman Trough from the Mid-Cayman Rise spreading center in the east, to Guatemala in the west, where it continues as the Motagua Fault. It consists of two main fault strands that overlap west of the Swan Islands. It has been associated with several major earthquakes, including those in 2009 and 2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United .... References {{Reflist Geology of Honduras Strike-slip faults ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cayman Trench
__NOTOC__ The Cayman Trough (also known as the Cayman Trench, Bartlett Deep and Bartlett Trough) is a complex transform fault zone pull-apart basin which contains a small spreading ridge, the Mid-Cayman Rise, on the floor of the western Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. It is the deepest point in the Caribbean Sea and forms part of the tectonic boundary between the North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate. It extends from the Windward Passage, going south of the Sierra Maestra of Cuba toward Guatemala. The transform fault continues onshore as the Polochic-Motagua fault system, which consists of the Polochic and Motagua faults. This system continues on until the Chiapas massif where it is part of the diffuse triple junction of the North American, Caribbean and Cocos plates. The relatively narrow trough trends east-northeast to west-southwest and has a maximum depth of . Within the trough is a slowly spreading north–south ridge which may be the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honduras
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Its capital and largest city is Tegucigalpa. Honduras was home to several important Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya, before the Spanish Colonization in the sixteenth century. The Spanish introduced Catholicism and the now predominant Spanish language, along with numerous customs that have blended with the indigenous culture. Honduras became independent in 1821 and has since been a republic, although it has consistently endured much social strife and political instability, and remains one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. In 1960, the northern part of what was the Mosquito Coast was transferred from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motagua Fault
The Motagua Fault (also, Motagua Fault Zone) is a major, active left lateral-moving transform fault which cuts across Guatemala. It forms part of the tectonic boundary between the North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate. It is considered the onshore continuation of the Swan Islands Transform Fault and Cayman trench, which run under the Caribbean Sea. Its western end appears not to continue further than its surface trace, where it is covered by Cenozoic volcanics. The Motagua Fault is regarded by some geologists as part of a system of faults designated the "Motagua-Polochic system" rather than as a discrete single boundary. The Polochic fault (also referred to as the Chixoy-Polochic Fault) lies north and parallel to the Motagua Fault and shares some of the motion between the North American and Caribbean Plates. Earthquakes The Motagua Fault has been responsible for several major earthquakes in Guatemala's history, including the 7.5 Mw Guatemala 1976 earthquake, and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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