Restoration of plate consumption recorded by Caribbean arc volcanism reveals probable plate movements that led to the emplacement of the proto-Caribbean plate into the present Caribbean region and provided the space necessary to accommodate the rotation of the Yucatán Peninsula concurrent with the opening of the Gulf of Mexico between ca. 170 Ma and 150 Ma. Fault movement of the Yucatán, caused by edge-driven processes, resulted in counterclockwise rotation, as shown by paleomagnetic studies. Restoration of Yucatán rotation necessitates the presence of a paleogeography different from the current distribution of the Greater and Lesser Antilles. During emplacement of the Caribbean plate region, four magmatic belts with distinct ages and different geochemical characteristics are recorded by exposures on islands of the Antilles. The belts distinguish the following segments of Cretaceous and Tertiary magmatic arcs: (1) an Early Cretaceous geochemically primitive islandarc tholeiite suite (PIA/IAT) typically containing distinctive dacite and rhyodacite that formed between Hauterivian and early Albian time (ca. 135-110 Ma); (2) after a hiatus at ca. 105 Ma of ~10 m.y., a voluminous, more-extensive calc-alkaline magmatic suite, consisting mainly of basaltic andesite, andesite, and locally important dacite, developed beginning in the Cenomanian and continuing into the Campanian (ca. 95-70 Ma); (3) a second (calc-alkaline) suite, spatially restricted relative to the older belts, that consists of volcanic and intrusive rocks, which formed between the early Paleocene and the middle Eocene (ca. 60-45 Ma); and (4) a currently active calc-alkaline suite in the Lesser Antilles typically composed of a basalt-andesitedacite series that began to develop in the Eocene (ca. 45 Ma). Plate convergence took place along northeastward-or eastward-trending axes during the formation of the Caribbean, which is outlined by the Antillean islands and Central and South America. Movements were facilitated by strike-slip faults, commonly trench-trench transforms, as subducting crust was consumed. Restoration of apparent displacements of at least several hundreds of thousands of kilometers along the inferred lateral faults of the Eocene and younger Cayman set separating Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and the Oriente Province of southeastern Cuba brings together Eocene volcanic rocks revealing a magmatic domain along the paleo-south-southwestern Lidiak, E.G., and Anderson, T.H., Evolution of the Caribbean plate and origin of the Gulf of Mexico in light of plate motions accommodated by strike-slip faulting, in
