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Synorogenic basins of central Cuba and collision between the Caribbean and North American plates

Abstract:

The synorogenic basins of central Cuba formed in a collision-related system. A tectono-stratigraphic analysis of these basins allows us to distinguish different structural styles along the Central Cuban Orogenic Belt. We recognize three distinct structural domains: (1) the Escambray Metamorphic Complex, (2) the Axial Zone, and (3) the Northern Deformation Belt. The structural evolution of the Escambray Metamorphic Complex includes a latest Cretaceous compressional phase followed by a Palaeogene extensional phase. Contraction created an antiformal stack in a subduction environment, and extension produced exhumation in an intra-arc setting. The Axial Zone was strongly deformed and shortened from the latest Cretaceous to Eocene. Compression occurred in an initial phase and subsequent transpressive deformation took place in the middle Eocene. The Northern Deformation Belt consists of a thin-skinned thrust fault system formed during the Palaeocene to middle Eocene; folding and faulting occurred in a piggyback sequence with tectonic transport towards the NNE. In the Central Cuban Orogenic Belt, some major SW-NE structures are coeval with the Cuban NW-SE striking folds and thrusts, and form tectonic corridors and/or transfer faults that facilitated strain-partitioning regime attending the collision. The shortening direction rotated clockwise during deformation from SSW-NNE to WSW-ENE. The synchronicity of compression in the north with extension in the south is consistent with the opening of the Yucatan Basin; the evolution from compression-extension to transpression is in keeping with the increase in obliquity in the collision between the Caribbean and North American plates. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.