The Cabo de la Vela Mafic–Ultramafic Complex, Northeastern Colombian Caribbean region: A record of multistage evolution of a Late Cretaceous intra-oceanic arc
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Published:January 01, 2009
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CiteCitation
M. B. I. Weber, A. Cardona, F. Paniagua, U. Cordani, L. Sepúlveda, R. Wilson, 2009. "The Cabo de la Vela Mafic–Ultramafic Complex, Northeastern Colombian Caribbean region: A record of multistage evolution of a Late Cretaceous intra-oceanic arc", The Origin and Evolution of the Caribbean Plate, K. H. James, M. A. Lorente, J. L. Pindell
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Abstract
Ophiolite-related rocks accreted to Caribbean Plate margins provide insights into the understanding of the intra-oceanic evolution of the Caribbean Plate and its interaction with the continental margins of the Americas. Petrological, geochemical and isotope (K–Ar, Sr and Nd) data were obtained in serpentinites, gabbros and andesite dykes from the Cabo de la Vela Mafic–Ultramafic Complex from the Guajira Peninsula, in the northernmost Colombian Caribbean region. Field relations, metasomatic alteration patterns and whole rock–mineral geochemistry combined with juvenile isotope signatures of the different units suggest that gabbros and serpentinites formed in a slow-spreading supra-subduction zone that was brought to shallower...
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The Origin and Evolution of the Caribbean Plate

This book considers the geology between North and South America. It contributes to debate about the area's evolution, particularly that of the Caribbean. Prevailing understanding is that the Caribbean formed in the Pacific and was engulfed between the Americas as the latter drifted west. Accordingly, the Caribbean Plate comprises internal, Jurassic–Cretaceous oceanic rocks, thickened into a Cretaceous hotspot/plume plateau, with obducted ophiolites and Cretaceous–Palaeogene, subduction-related, intra-oceanic volcanic arc and metamorphosed arc/continental rocks exposed on its margins. An alternative interpretation is that the Caribbean evolved in place. It consists largely of continental crust, extended in the Triassic–Jurassic, which subsided below thick Jurassic–Cretaceous carbonate rocks and flood basalts, and Cenozoic carbonate and clastic rocks. After uplift of ‘oceanic’ and volcanic arc rocks onto (continental) margins, the interior foundered in the Middle Eocene. Papers range from regional overviews and discussions of Caribbean origins to aspects of local geology arranged in a circum-Caribbean tour and ending in the interior. They address tectonics, structure, geochronology, seismicity, igneous and metamorphic petrology, metamorphism, geochemistry, stratigraphy and palaeontology.