Contains 17 contributed chapters on the geology and tectonics of Panama, Costa Rica, and offshore areas. Five chapters describe onshore geology, three describe a combination of onshore geology and offshore marine geophysical data and attempt land-sea correlations, six describe marine geophysical dat

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the geological evolution of the Northern Andes and contiguous shield areas, with a focus upon Colombia. Updated geological interpretations are supported by modern lithogeochemical, seismic, gravity and magnetic data and radiogenic isotope and radiometric age determinations. The composite data permits a detailed interpretation of the tectono-magmatic history of the Northern Andean Block, including the Andes of Colombia, northern Ecuador, western Venezuela and eastern Panamá. Tectonic reconstructions based upon characterization of more than thirty litho-tectonic and morpho-structural units, terrane assemblages and tectonic realms, and their bounding suture and fault systems, highlight the intimate and complementary Mesozoic-Cenozoic history of the Northern Andean Block and the Pacific and Caribbean Plates. The complex nature of Northern Andean assembly contrasts with ‘‘classical’’ Central Andean ‘‘Cordilleran-type’’ orogenic models. Differences render the application of typical Cordilleran-type models inappropriate for the Colombian Andes. The importance of underlying Proterozoic through mid-Mesozoic elements, in the development of Meso-Cenozoic Northern Andean orogeny-phase tectonic configurations is analyzed in the light of spatial-temporal studies and reconstructions related to basin formation, sedimentation, deformation, uplift mechanisms, structural style and magmatic evolution. The pre-Andean architecture of north western South America has played a pre-determinative role in the development of the Northern Andean orogenic system. 16 contributions analyze key stratigraphic, structural, metamorphic, magmatic and tectonic questions, and provide solutions as far as the most recent published field-based studies permit. The volume provides geological interpretations and tectonic models which contrast with repetitive theoretical proposals frequently found in the available literature.

An integrated treatment of the principal fields of classical and applied geosciences of Central America, this authoritative two-volume monograph treats the region as a whole, exploring geology, earth resources and geo-hazards across political boundaries. It reviews the published literature, and supplements it with an abundance of information from o

This 21-chapter volume provides a regionally-comprehensive collection of original studies of Caribbean basins conducted by academic and petroleum geologists and geophysicists in the early and mid-1990s. The common tectonic events discussed in the volume including the rifting and passive margin history of North and South America that led to the formation of the Caribbean region; the entry of an exotic, Pacific-derived Great Arc of the Caribbean at the leading edge of the Caribbean oceanic plateau; the terminal collision of the arc and plateau with the passive margins fringing North and South America; and subsequent strike-slip and accretionary tectonics that affected the arc-continent collision zone.Two introductory chapters (Part A) utilize recent advances in quantitative plate tectonic modeling and satellite-based gravity measurements to place the main phases of Caribbean basin formation into a global plate tectonic framework. Nineteen subsequent chapters are organized geographically and focus on individual or groups of genetically-linked basins. Part B consists of five chapters which mainly focus on basins overlying the North America plate in the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba and the Bahamas that record its rifting from South America in late Jurassic to Cretaceous time. Part C has six chapters that focus on smaller, usually heavily faulted and onshore Cenozoic basins of the northern Caribbean that formed in response to arc collisional and strike-slip activity along the evolving North America-Caribbean plate boundary. The two chapters in Part D focus on Cenozoic basins related to the Lesser Antilles arc system of the eastern Caribbean. Part E is comprised of three chapters on the Jurassic-Recent sedimentary basins of the eastern Venezuela and Trinidad area of the southeastern Caribbean. These basins reflect both the Jurassic-Cretaceous rifting and passive margin history of separation between the North and South America plates as well as a much younger phase of Oligocene to recent transpression between the eastward migrating Lesser Antilles arc and accretionary wedge and the South America continent. The three chapters of Part F contain deep penetration seismic reflection and other geophysical data on the largely submarine Cretaceous Caribbean oceanic plateau that forms the nucleus of the present-day Caribbean plate.

This book examines one of the most important and complex of the world's tropical rainforest regions: the greater Panama Canal Watershed. The Rio Chagres is the primary water source for operating the Canal, and supplies potable water for municipal use and electricity generation, but science has left this important national resource largely unstudied. The text promotes understanding of the physical and ecological components of an isolated and largely pristine tropical rainforest.

How were the tropical Americas formed? This ambitious volume draws on extensive, multidisciplinary research to develop new views of the geological formation of the isthmus linking North and South America and of the major environmental changes that reshaped the Neotropics to create its present-day marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Recent discoveries show that dramatic changes in climate and ocean circulation can occur very quickly, and that ecological communities respond just as rapidly. Abrupt changes in the composition of fossil assemblages, formerly dismissed as artifacts of a poor fossil record, now are seen as accurate records of swift changes in the composition of ocean communities. The twenty-four contributors use current work in paleontology, geology, oceanography, anthropology, ecology, and evolution to paint this challenging portrait of rapid environmental and evolutionary change. Their conclusions argue for a revision of existing interpretations of the fossil record and the processes—including invading Eurasian peoples—that have produced it.