Eocene intra-plate shortening responsible for the rise of a faunal pathway in the northeastern Caribbean realm

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 15; no. 10; p. e0241000
• Main Authors: Philippon, Mélody, Cornée, Jean-Jacques, Münch, Philippe, van Hinsbergen, Douwe J J, BouDagher-Fadel, Marcelle, Gailler, Lydie, Boschman, Lydian M, Quillevere, Fredéric, Montheil, Leny, Gay, Aurelien, Lebrun, Jean Fredéric, Lallemand, Serge, Marivaux, Laurent, Antoine, Pierre-Olivier
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 20.10.2020; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Animals; Aves; Caribbean Region; Crustal thickness; Dispersal (Ecology); Earth Sciences; Environmental Sciences; Eocene; Eocene Epoch; Evolution; Foraminifera; Geological Phenomena; Geology; Global Changes; Hypotheses; Island arcs; Islands; Land bridges; Miocene; Natural history; Oligocene; People and places; Physical Sciences; Plate tectonics; Puerto Rico; Sciences of the Universe; Stratigraphy; Submergence; Thermal relaxation; Thickening; Volcanoes; Puerto Rico; Caribbean Region; Caribbean Islands; Cuba; Hispaniola; Lesser Antilles; France; North America; Grenada; Bahamas
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241000

Intriguing latest Eocene land-faunal dispersals between South America and the Greater Antilles (northern Caribbean) has inspired the hypothesis of the GAARlandia (Greater Antilles Aves Ridge) land bridge. This landbridge, however, should have crossed the Caribbean oceanic plate, and the geological evolution of its rise and demise, or its geodynamic forcing, remain unknown. Here we present the results of a land-sea survey from the northeast Caribbean plate, combined with chronostratigraphic data, revealing a regional episode of mid to late Eocene, trench-normal, E-W shortening and crustal thickening by ∼25%. This shortening led to a regional late Eocene-early Oligocene hiatus in the sedimentary record revealing the location of an emerged land (the Greater Antilles-Northern Lesser Antilles, or GrANoLA, landmass), consistent with the GAARlandia hypothesis. Subsequent submergence is explained by combined trench-parallel extension and thermal relaxation following a shift of arc magmatism, expressed by a regional early Miocene transgression. We tentatively link the NE Caribbean intra-plate shortening to a well-known absolute and relative North American and Caribbean plate motion change, which may provide focus for the search of the remaining connection between 'GrANoLA' land and South America, through the Aves Ridge or Lesser Antilles island arc. Our study highlights the how regional geodynamic evolution may have driven paleogeographic change that is still reflected in current biology.