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The tectonic significance of basalts and dacites in the Wagwater Belt, Jamaica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

T. A. Jackson  and
T. E. Smith
T. A. Jackson
Affiliation:
Geology Department, University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston 7, Jamaica
T. E. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4Canada
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Summary

The Wagwater Belt is a fault-bounded structural unit in which more than 3000 m of early Tertiary sedimentary and volcanic rocks are exposed. Geochemical analyses of the volcanic rocks show that they comprise a bimodal suite of plateau-type tholeiitic basalts and calcalkaline dacites. The extrusion of these volcanics is associated with the development of an interarc basin, the Wagwater Basin, at the beginning of the Cenozoic Era. The Wagwater Basin formed as a result of the splitting of a mature late Cretaceous volcanic arc into a frontal and third arc represented by the Blue Mountain Massif and the Clarendon Block respectively. This model for Jamaica can be correlated with tectonic events occurring in the NW Caribbean during the early Tertiary. The creation of the Wagwater Basin and the eruption of the basalts is related to the initial opening of the Cayman Trough. The cessation of dacite volcanic activity in Jamaica signified the separation of the Caribbean Plate from the East Pacific Farallon Plate.

Type
Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 116 , Issue 5 , September 1979 , pp. 365 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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