Subsidence controls on foreland basin development of northwestern offshore Cuba, southeastern Gulf of Mexico

We reviewed the tectonostratigraphic evolution of the Jurassic-Cenozoic collision between the North American and the Caribbean plate using more than 30,000 km (18,641 mi) of regional two-dimensional (2-D) academic seismic lines and Deep Sea Drilling Project wells of Leg 77. The main objective is to perform one-dimensional subsidence analysis and 2-D flexural modeling to better understand how the Caribbean collision may have controlled the stratigraphic evolution of the offshore Cuba region. Five main tectonic phases previously proposed were recognized: (1) Late Triassic-Jurassic rifting between South and North America that led to the formation of the proto-Caribbean plate; this event is interpreted as half grabens controlled by fault family 1 as the east-northeast-south-southwest-striking faults; (2) Middle-Late Jurassic anticlockwise rotation of the Yucatan block and formation of the Gulf of Mexico; this event resulted in north-northwest-south-southeast striking faults of fault family 2 controlling half-graben structures; (3) Early Cretaceous passive margin development characterized by carbonate sedimentation; sedimentation was controlled by normal subsidence and eustatic changes, and because of high eustatic seas during the Late Cretaceous, the carbonate platform drowned; (4) Late Cretaceous-Paleogene collision between the Caribbean plate, resulting in the Cuban fold and thrust belt province, the foreland basin province, and the platform margin province; the platform margin province represents the submerged paleoforebulge, which was formed as a flexural response to the tectonic load of the Great Arc of the Caribbean during initial Late Cretaceous-Paleocene collision and foreland basin development that was subsequently submerged during the Eocene to the present water depths as the arc tectonic load reached the maximum collision; and (5) Late Cenozoic large deep-sea erosional features and constructional sediment drifts related to the formation of the Oligocene-Holocene Loop Current-Gulf Stream that flows from the northern Caribbean into the Straits of Florida and to the north Atlantic.