Cenozoic Sedimentary and Deformational History of Hispaniola, 1: Southeastern Cordillera Central: ABSTRACT

The Cordillera Central approximates an elongate (220 km), elevated (>3 km), thrust-bounded anticline cored by Cretaceous-Paleogene arc rocks and uplifted during Miocene to recent time by convergent strike-slip movements between the North American and Caribbean plates. The southeastern termination of the anticline plunges beneath a thick (>6 km), well-exposed marine clastic sedimentary sequence. Because uplift-related faulting is minimal in this hinge region of the Cordillera Central anticline, the authors have carried out detailed mapping of the area to determine (1) relation of Cretaceous-Paleogene arc basement to overlying Cenozoic sedimentary cover, and (2) Cenozoic deformational history of arc and basin sequences. Mapping has clearly distinguished three superimposed Cenozoic basins lying on arc basement. The lowest basin (basin 1) is Paleocene-Eocene in age and consists of alternations of arc-derived turbidies with interbedded pelagic limestone and red mudstone. In apparent conformity above this basin is an approximately 4-km thick marine clastic sequence of medial Eocene through early Miocene age (basin 2). These sediments consist of fining-upward turbiditic sequence derived from the northwest and northeast. Arc basement and overlying basins 1 and 2 were shortened approximately 25% in a short-lived, northwest-southeast-directed compressional event that resulted in the formation of large open synclines and tightlymore » folded and faulted anticlines with fold amplitudes of 1-6 km. Underformed, medial Miocene sediments of a mixed clastic and carbonate shelf facies (basin 3) unconformably overlie the folded latest Oligocene-early Miocene rocks of basin 2 and thus constrain the age of folding as early to middle Miocene.« less