Caribbean Plate

The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate. It is located below Central America and the Caribbean Sea on the north coast of South America.

The Caribbean Plate is about 3.2 million square kilometers in area. It is surrounded by the North American plate to the north, the South American Plate to the east and southeast, the Nazca plate in the southwest and the coconut plate to the west. At their boundaries often leads to seismic activities, frequent earthquakes, occasional tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

Boundary types

The southern boundary of the North American plate runs along the border of Belize, Guatemala and Honduras in Central America, north of the Cayman trench and the south-east coast of Cuba, further north along Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands over. Part of the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean (approximately 8,400 meters deep), is also located on this border.

The eastern boundary is a subduction zone. The boundary between the North and South American Plate in the Atlantic is undefined, so it is unclear whether one or possibly both dive under the Caribbean Plate. Subduction form the volcanic islands of the Lesser Antilles island arc of the Virgin Islands in the north and to the islands off of the coast of Venezuela in the south. At this boundary there are 17 active volcanoes. The activists are: Soufriere Hills on Montserrat, Mount Pelée in Martinique, La Grande Soufriére on Guadeloupe, Saint Vincent Soufriére on St. Vincent and the submarine volcano Kick- 'em - Jenny, who is about 10 km north of Grenada.

Along the geological complex of the southern boundary of the Caribbean Plate and the South American Plate move together. Here are Trinidad (on the South American Plate ) and Tobago formed (on the Caribbean plate ) and islands off the coast of Venezuela (including the Leeward Islands ) and Colombia. The southern boundary is partly the result of subduction.

Central America is located on the western portion of the plate. The Cocos Pacific is under the Caribbean plate, just off the western coast of Central America. This subduction forms the volcanoes of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

The origin

It is believed that the Caribbean Plate a large igneous province Large (English: large igneous province, LIP) is that formed the Pacific million years ago. As the Atlantic Ocean extended to North and South America were pushed westward, and the floor of the Pacific Ocean began to dip below the western edge of the American continent. The Caribbean Plate is thicker and higher than the rest of the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Rather than defy the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, it moves to the East to North and South America. With the formation of the Isthmus of Panama about 3 million years ago, the Caribbean Plate finally lost the connection to the Pacific.