Velocities from six continuous and 14 campaign sites within the boundaries of the Caribbean plate, including eight new sites from previously unsampled areas of Honduras and Nicaragua at the western edge of the Caribbean plate, are described and tested for their consistency with Caribbean–North America plate motion and a rigid Caribbean plate model. Sites in central Honduras and Guatemala move 3–8 mm yr −1 westward with respect to the Caribbean plate interior, consistent with distributed east-to-west extension in Guatemala and the western two-thirds of Honduras. A site in southern Jamaica moves 8 ± 1 mm yr −1 westward relative to the Caribbean plate interior, indicating that most or all of Jamaica is unsuitable for estimating Caribbean plate motion. Two sites in southern Hispaniola also exhibit anomalous motions relative to the plate interior, consistent with a tectonic bias at those sites. An inversion of the velocities for 15 sites nominally located in the plate interior yields a well-constrained Caribbean plate angular velocity vector that predicts motion similar to previously published models. Data bootstrapping indicates that the solution is robust to better than 1 mm yr −1 with respect to both the site velocities that are used to estimate the plate angular velocity and the site velocity uncertainties. That velocities at seven of eight GPS sites in eastern Honduras and Nicaragua are consistent with the motions of sites elsewhere in the plate interior indicates that much or all of eastern Honduras and Nicaragua move with the plate interior within the 1–2 mm yr −1 resolution of our data. It further suggests that the morphologically prominent, but aseismic Guayape fault of eastern Honduras is inactive. Tests for possible east-to-west deformation across the Beata Ridge and Lower Nicaraguan Rise in the plate interior establish a 95% upper bound of ∼2 mm yr −1 for any deformation across the two features, significantly slower than a published estimate of 9.0 ± 1.5 mm yr −1 during the past 23 Ma for deformation across the Beata Ridge.

The Cordillera Central of Hispaniola is a Cretaceous-Eocene island-arc terrane that was uplifted in Miocene to Recent time by oblique convergence between the North America and Caribbean plates. Island arc rocks at the southeastern topographic termination of the Cordillera Central plunge beneath three distinct Cenozoic marine clastic sedimentary sequences that are well exposed in a semi-arid climate. Major and minor structures and unconformities in the three sedimentary sequences record four Cenozoic deformational events that place important constraints on the tectonic history of Hispaniola. The first deformational event occurred in Late Eocene time and is marked by zones of syn-sedimentary stratal disruption and thrust imbrication of different lithologies of the Early-early Late Eocene Peralta Group (Witschard and Dolan, 1990). Witschard and Dolan (1990) proposed that Late Eocene syn-sedimentary deformation occurred in a Late Eocene accretionary wedge that formed as a result of early transpression along the North America-Caribbean strike-slip boundary and/or collision between the Hispaniola island arc and the Bahamas platform. Oblique northeastward underthrusting and accretion beneath southern Hispaniola may have continued until the Early Miocene and resulted in deposition of a thick (2 to 8.5 km), clastic sedimentary sequence (Rio Ocoa Group) in an elongate basin between an outer high (Peralta Group) and the extinct island arc of central Hispaniola. The second deformational event incorporated the previously deformed rocks of the Peralta belt and the Eocene to Early Miocene rocks of the Rio Ocoa Group in a southwest-verging fold and thrust belt. These rocks are unconformably overlain by unfolded rocks of the Middle Miocene-Pleistocene(?) Ingenio Caei Group that constrain the age of deformation to Early Miocene time. The deformational style of the Rio Ocoa Group suggests thrusting along a basal thrust fault inferred at depths of 2 to 3 km beneath the present-day land surface. We propose that the fold and thrust belt formed as the result of collision between Late Cretaceous oceanic plateau rocks of southern Hispaniola with the island-arc rocks of northern Hispaniola. The third deformational event occurred in Late Miocene(?) to the present and is marked by the uplift of the Cordillera Central and a resulting southeastward tilting of the Ingenio Caei Group and of fold axes within the Rio Ocoa Group. We attribute this uplift event to the formation of a strike-slip restraining bend in central Hispaniola. A fourth and final event affecting the area is marked by northeast-striking faults with apparent right-lateral offsets of Early Miocene folds and relatively greater post-Early Miocene shortening in the northwest corner of the study area. We attribute these effects to localized indentation of the southern margin of Hispaniola by northeastward displacement of the Beata Ridge.