Velocity field across the Southern Caribbean Plate Boundary and estimates of Caribbean/South-American Plate Motion using GPS Geodesy 1994-2000
Abstract
Global Positioning System (GPS) observations between 1994 and 2000 at twenty-two sites in the Lesser Antilles and northern South-America indicate that the Caribbean plate, along its southern boundary, slips at a rate of 20.5±2 mm/a with an azimuth of N 84°±2°E at 65°W, relative to the South-American plate. East of 68° W, 80% of the dextral slip is contained within a 80-km wide shear zone centered on the El Pilar-San Sebastián fault system. West of 68° W the plate boundary broadens to more than 300 km with dextral shear shared between the northeast trending Boconó fault (9-11 mm/a) in western Venezuelan, and an offshore system near the northern coast.
- Publication:
-
Geophysical Research Letters
- Pub Date:
- August 2001
- DOI:
- 10.1029/2001GL013183
- Bibcode:
- 2001GeoRL..28.2987P
- Keywords:
-
- Geodesy and Gravity;
- Tectonophysics: Plate motions-general;
- Marine Geology and Geophysics: Plate tectonics (8150;
- 8155;
- 8157;
- 8158)