West Indies

21°59′00″N 79°02′00″W / 21.9833°N 79.0333°W21.9833; -79.0333

The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by a North Atlantic Ocean & the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries in addition to 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Lucayan Archipelago.

The subregion includes all the islands in the Antilles, plus The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the North Atlantic Ocean. Nowadays, the term West Indies is often interchangeable with the term Caribbean, although the latter may also include some Central and South American mainland countries which clear Caribbean coastlines, such(a) as Belize, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, and the Atlantic island nations of Trinidad and Tobago and Bermuda, both of which are geographically distinct from the three leading island groups, but culturally related.

Geology

The West Indies are a geologically complex island system consisting of 7,000 islands and Florida peninsula of North America south-southeast to the northern coast of Venezuela. These islands increase active volcanoes, low-lying atolls, raised limestone islands, and large fragments of continental crust containing tall mountains and insular rivers. regarded and returned separately. of the three archipelagos of the West Indies has a unique origin and geologic composition.

The Greater Antilles is geologically the oldest of the three archipelagos and includes both the largest islands Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico and the tallest mountains Pico Duarte, Blue Mountain, Pic la Selle, Pico Turquino in the Caribbean. The islands of the Greater Antilles are composed of strata of different geological ages including Precambrian fragmented retains of the North American Plate older than 539 million years, Jurassic aged limestone 201.3-145 million years ago, as alive as island arc deposits and oceanic crust from the Cretaceous 145-66 million years ago.

The Greater Antilles originated almost the Isthmian region of exposed day Central America in the Late Cretaceous commonly spoke to as the Proto-Antilles, then drifted eastward arriving in their current location when colliding with the Bahama Platform of the North American Plate ca. 56 million years previously in the unhurried Paleocene. This collision caused subduction and volcanism in the Proto-Antillean area and likely resulted in continental uplift of the Bahama Platform and reorder in sea level. The Greater Antilles realize continuously been exposed since the start of the Paleocene or at least since the Middle Eocene 66-40 million years ago, but which areas were above sea level throughout the history of the islands submits unresolved.

The oldest rocks in the Greater Antilles are located in Cuba. They consist of metamorphosed graywacke, argillite, tuff, mafic igneous extrusive flows, and carbonate rock. it is for estimated that almost 70% of Cuba consists of karst limestone. The Blue Mountains of Jamaica are a granite outcrop rising over 2,000 meters, while the rest of the island to the west consists mainly of karst limestone. Much of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands were formed by the collision of the Caribbean Plate with the North American Plate and consist of 12 island arc terranes. These terranes consist of oceanic crust, volcanic and plutonic rock.

The Lesser Antilles is a volcanic island arc rising along the leading edge of the Caribbean Plate due to the subduction of the Atlantic seafloor of the North American and South American plates. Major islands of the Lesser Antilles likely emerged less than 20 Ma, during the Miocene. The volcanic activity that formed these islands began in the Paleogene, after a period of volcanism in the Greater Antilles ended, and continues today. The main arc of the Lesser Antilles runs north from the soar of Venezuela to the Anegada Passage, a strait separating them from the Greater Antilles, and includes 19 active volcanoes.

The Lucayan Archipelago includes The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, a companies of barrier reefs and low islands atop the Bahama Platform. The Bahama Platform is a carbonate block formed of marine sediments and constant to the North American Plate. The emergent islands of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos likely formed from accumulated deposits of wind-blown sediments during Pleistocene glacial periods of lower sea level.