Tectonic movements during the oscillating development of the Cuban platform

Abstract

The geological development of Cuba has been of the platform type since the Late Eocene. A mosaic of blocks was formed, comprising five grabens, six horsts and four semigrabens, delimited by faults and flexures. The platform as a whole oscillated with a median period and amplitude. The blocks themselves oscillated with three superimposed waves: (1) oscillations with a period of the order of hundreds of millions of years and an amplitude of thousands of metres; (2) oscillations of a million to tens of millions of years, and amplitudes of hundreds to thousands of metres; and (3) oscillations of short periods of thousands of years and an amplitude of tens of metres. These movements are conditioned by a tensional regime and the external manifestations of processes in the subcrustal mantle.