Back to Circum-Caribbean and North Andean tectonomagmatic evolution" Workshop

Paul Mann and BOLIVAR-GEODINOS working group, University of Texas at Austin, and collaborating institutions

The BOLIVAR-GEODINOS study of northern South America investigated tectonic and continental growth processes using a wide array of methods including earthquake seismicity, geochemistry, active and passive seismic experiments, structural geology, and studies of on- and offshore basins. The study involved about 60 academic and petroleum geoscientists at institutions in the USA and Venezuela, surveyed a partially submerged plate boundary zone that extends from western Venezuela to Trinidad and as far north as the Venezuelan basin, and lasted over a period of 7 years. Funding for the project was jointly provided by the USA and Venezuela. This talk will focus on project-related results completed by researchers and graduate students at the University of Texas but will also attempt to integrate our UT results with the project results of other members of the working group. Topics to be illustrated with the acquired data sets will include: 1) distribution of continental, arc, and oceanic crust; 2) GPS-based plate and microplate motions; 3) tectonic origin of arc-related basins along the Caribbean arc; 4) diachronous deformation of Caribbean arc-related features within the Caribbean arc-South America collision zone; 5) diachronous formation of foreland type basins on continental crust; 6) diachronous, subduction polarity reversal as a consequence of Caribbean-South America collision; 7)formation of strike-slip zones and basins above previously formed collisional features; and 8) plate evolution and tectonic controls through time.