Caribbean Geology

The birth of the Caribbean Geological Conference in 1955 was a landmark in the search for geoscientific knowledge in the region. The proceedings of this conference continue to uncover many aspects of the Caribbean that remain virtually untouched and address questions that remain unanswered. This volume reports the most recent research on Caribbean geology, presented at the Fifteenth Caribbean Geological Conference held in 1998. The 24 research papers shed new light in the areas of plate tectonics, structural geology, metamorphic and igneous petrology, paleontology, biostratigraphy, economic geology, geochemistry, mineralogy, geologic hazards and geoscience education.

Summaries of the major features of the geology of North America and the adjacent oceanic regions are presented in 20 chapters. Topics covered include concise reviews of current thinking about Precambrian basement, Phanerozoic orogens, cratonic basins, passive-margin geology of the Atlantic and Gulf Coast regions, marine and terrestrial geology of the Caribbean region and economic geology.

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