THE MAYA-CHORTS BOUNDARY: A TECTONOSTRATIGRAPHIC APPROACH

Fernando Ortega-Gutirrez1, Luigi A. Solari1, Carlos Ortega-Obregn1, Mariano ElasHerrera1, Uve Martens2, Sergio Morn-Icl3, Mauricio Chiqun3, John Duncan Keppie1, Rafael Torres de Len1, Peter Schaaf4
1

Instituto de Geologa, Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico

Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, USA

3

Universidad de San Carlos, Cobn, Guatemala

Instituto de Geofsica, Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico

Corresponding author: Fernando Ortega Gutirrez fortega@servidor.unam.mx Tel. +5255-56224300, ext. 106 Fax +5255-564289

ABSTRACT This work presents an updated revision of the complex stratigraphic and tectonic relationships that characterize the geologic boundary between the Chorts and Maya continental blocks of the Caribbean region. Based on field, petrologic, structural and geochronological work in key areas of central Guatemala, we propose a new tectonostratigraphic structure that appraises more fully the fundamental tectonic role of the multiple major faults that cut across the continental isthmus between the Americas, and bounds separate stratigraphic packages that may well qualify as tectonostratigraphic terranes (or fault blocks according to JDK). Accordingly, we subdivide the area into seven of theses units, which from south to north are as follows: 1. Chorts, 2. Yoro, 3. Sula, 4. El Tambor, 5. Jacalteco, 6. Ach, and 7. Maya, bounded respectively by the Agan-La Ceiba, Jocotn-Chamelecn, Motagua, Baja Verapaz, and Chixoy-Polochic fault zones. Unfortunately, the extreme paucity of modern geologic data bearing on the pre-Cretaceous cover and basement units in the entire region, constitutes a major obstacle for building up convincing paleogeographic models that may explain the complex tectonic evolution of the area from Precambrian to Cenozoic times. Consequently, this work should be taken as a valuable line to understand more clearly the nature and contact relationships between deep crustal blocks in the Nuclear Central America area, and as a contribution to the ultimate endeavor of restoring their geologic evolution in the modern paradigm of plate tectonics.

1. INTRODUCTION The integral geology of the Central America-Caribbean region was first presented in the monumental work of Schuchert (1935), followed by the opus magnus of Sapper 2

(1937), then well described in relation to its mineral deposits (Roberts and Irving, 1957), subsequently comprehensively treated by Butterlin (1977) and Weyl (1980), and most thoroughly reviewed on occasion of the Centennial Decade celebration of the Geological Society of America by Donnelly and others (1990). Subsequently, geologic research in the area has been mainly directed toward fundamental questions about the Mesozoic and Cenozoic tectonic evolution of the Caribbean realm (e.g. Pindell and Barret, 1990; Heubeck and Mann, 1991; Beccaluva et al., 1995; Meshede and Frisch, 1998; Rogers, 2003), including a complete volume of the Geologica Acta dedicated to plate tectonics implications of the Caribbean (Iturralde-Vinent and Lidiak, 2006), and yet very little has been published about the metamorphic basement complexes, or the pre-Jurassic cover of the Central America subcontinent, which constitutes a critical element bridging the North American and South American cratons. Complex geological conditions require careful assessment of the local and regional stratigraphy before meaningful reconstructions of past geological history are attempted. In this regard, the pre-Mesozoic stratigraphic composition of the Chorts and Maya blocks (Dengo, 1969), as well as the intervening old crustal slices, have to be considered as completely as possible before establishing robust correlations with the pre-Mesozoic rocks of continental areas of Mexico, northern South America, and the United States. In this paper, we use well established tectonostratigraphic criteria (e.g. Coney et al., 1980; Howell, 1985) to differentiate fault-bounded geologic entities in the region and to group them in three major domains: 1) Chorts block (Dengo, 1969), 2) Maya block (Dengo, 1969), and 3) intervening fault-bounded crystalline complexes (note that JDK prefers the term fault blocks rather than terranes for these faultbounded blocks because the age of many of the units is too uncertain to be sure if one 3

is comparing rocks of the same age: see Keppie, 2004). The latter group is herein defined as a series of crustal slices formed by metamorphic basement complexes located between the Polochic-Cuilco-Chixoy fault system in the north, and the JocotnChamelecn-La Ceiba in the south (Figure 1). With this approach, the main purpose of the study is to present a new regional stratigraphic framework that may serve to better accommodate and understand the abundant data that is presently produced by a growing international community working in the area.

2. NORTH WESTERN BOUNDARY OF THE NORTH AMERICA-CARIBBEAN PLATES The boundary between the Caribbean and North America plates in the Central American region is marked (Figure 1) by a diffuse arcuate system of roughly E-W trending faults, concave northwards with a mean radius of about 300 km centered at the northern Mexico-Guatemala border near the town of Paxbn. From south to north, the Jocotn-Chamelecn, San Agustn-Motagua-Cabaas, and Cuilco-Chixoy-Polochic fault systems, subsequently referred respectively as Jocotn, Motagua, and Polochic faults for simplicity, currently define this composite structural boundary. On the other hand, Guzmn-Speziale, (1989, 1998) extended the active part of the plate boundary as far north as the Chiapas fold-thrust belt in southeastern Mexico (see Figure 1), and proposed left lateral displacements of about 70 km accumulated on 9 major faults. We think, from field work in the area and the analysis of satellite imagery, that the Polochic fault splays into two main branches: a) the Cuilco-Motozintla fault that intersects the Mexican border near Amatenango de la Frontera, following from there about 20 km up to the Motozintla River headwaters where it seems to end, contrary to other models (i.e. 4

Burkart et al., 1987) that continue the fault westwards gradually bending it northward to follow the southern limit of the Soconusco batholith, and b) a structural lineament complex that departing from just west of Huehuetenango in Guatemala follows the Selegua River and continues across the Mexican border along an arcuate fault, which in turn joins at Mapastepec with a major shear zone defining the southern margin of the Chiapas batholith (Figure 1). This major fault was named as the Tonal shear zone (Wawrzyniec et al., 2005) and is marked by vertical mylonites dated (Ar-Ar) at 8.0 0.1 Ma with left lateral kinematics (Tovar-Corts et al., 2005). The Motagua fault, on the other hand, although apparently interrupted or buried in central Guatemala by the most recent volcanic deposits, may be traced into Mexico following the E-trending Belisario Domnguez mylonitic shear zone that intersects the Mexico-Guatemala border near the Tacan volcano (Figure 1), and it may continue from there eastward under the Guatemalan volcanic cover, to merge with the westernmost exposed trace of the Motagua fault south of Huehuetenango. Present activity along these faults (Malfait and Dinkelman, 1972; Dengo, 1985; Donnelly et al., 1990; Cceres et al., 2005), is recorded along the Motagua-Polochic fault system (Figure 2), as dramatically demonstrated by the 1976 earthquake (Ms = 7.5, Plafker, 1976; Kanamori and Stewart, 1978) with measured sinistral displacements up to 2 meters along the Motagua-Cabaas fault, and the by the large Guatemalan earthquake of 1816 (MW = 7.5-7.75) with epicenter at the Polochic fault (White, 1985). The present displacement rate of the Caribbean plate relative to the North America plate is around 2 cm/year (e.g. De Mets et al., 2000). Other authors (e.g. Burkart, 1983) proposed that the northern Caribbean limit was successively occupied since Miocene times by one of the three main faults: Polochic, Motagua, and Jocotn. 5

Cumulative displacements proposed across these faults vary from more than 1100 km (Mann and Burke, 1984; Rosencrantz and Sclater, 1986; Rosencrantz et al., 1988) to only a few hundred kilometers, with a maximum displacement of 130 km taken by the Polochic fault, as documented by Burkart (1978, 1983), and Deaton and Burkart (1984). The remaining offset (>1000 km), if true, should be recorded by the MotaguaJocotn and other undocumented faults south of the Polochic. However, total displacements based alone on geologic relations of these faults are essentially unknown (Gordon and Muehlberger 1994), or up to 300 km (Manton, 1987). The Polochic fault extends westward across central Guatemala and constitutes the northernmost and distinct structural element of the inferred northwestern Caribbean Plate boundary. To the west, and just before entering Mexico, it appears to develop a horsetail pattern that does not reach the Pacific Ocean, whereas other authors have advocated continuity of the Polochic fault to the west where it either intersects the Acapulco trench at a putative triple junction in the Gulf of Tehuantepec area (e.g. De Cserna, 1958; Muehlberger and Ritchie, 1975; Burkart and Self, 1985), or along the southern margin of the Chiapas batholith (Lapierre et al., 2000). An eastward 45 deflection of the NW-trending Chiapas-Petn fold-and-thrust belt (from NW to E-W) as it approaches the E-W-trending Polochic fault indicates a minimum left-lateral displacement of about 150 km (assuming the bending is linked with faulting). The continuity of the present Cayman Trough and main Guatemalan fault systems, with the ancestral Middle America trench in the past, is implicit in models that advocate up to 1400 km of Eocene-Miocene, left-lateral displacements of the Chorts block off the margin of southwestern Mexico. This order-of-magnitude difference and uncertainty in possible Cenozoic displacements between the Chorts and Maya blocks places severe 6

constraints to robust paleogeographic reconstructions of the region as discussed below. On the other hand, Keppie and Morn-Zenteno (2005) propose that the Eocene boundary between the North America and Caribbean plates may be projected southwestward along the strike of the Cayman faults beneath the Central America arc and coinciding with a gravity anomaly, allowing the Chorts block to move 1100 km about a pole of rotation located near Santiago de Chile northeastward from the Pacific Ocean to its present position.

3. STRATIGRAPHY The region of Central America has been naturally subdivided into blocks or terranes with contrasting stratigraphic columns (Figure 3) separated by major faults (e.g. Dengo, 1969; Horne et al., 1976; Case et al., 1984). Each block contains a distinctive crystalline basement with poorly known ages exposed under a cover of sedimentary and volcanic rocks, the age of which may be as old as early Paleozoic (this work), to as young as Neogene. Unfortunately, stratigraphic correlations among the blocks (e.g. Figure 2 of Horne et al., 1976), have been plagued by the paucity of fossiliferous rocks in the pre-Cretaceous cover, as well as by the lack of reliable isotopic ages for their crystalline basements; consequently, the relative mobility and magnitude of offsets across the major faults in the studied area still remain as principal subjects of study and debate. From south to north we now describe the crystalline basement components (Figure 4) of three tectonostratigraphic domains: a) Chorts block, b) fault-bounded crystalline terranes, and c) Maya block, followed by a general description of the preCretaceous volcanic and sedimentary cover across the area

3.1. Pre-Mesozoic crystalline basement units of Chorts and Maya blocks 3.1.1. Chorts Block Nelson et al., (1997) stated that U/Pb zircon crystallization ages and Sm-Nd data indicate that the Chorts crust in Guatemala and Honduras is mainly of Grenville age or has an inherited Grenville component. If the Chorts block indeed extends to the Motagua fault zone, the oldest rocks reported (Grenvillian) from the Chorts block crop out south of the Jocotn-La Ceiba fault between the El Progreso and Yoro (Figure 1) in NW Honduras (Manton, 1996). Mesozoic sedimentary rocks cover this basement terrane and it is in fault contact with low-grade units of the undated San Diego Phyllite. Unfortunately, the data are in abstract form and the full appraisal of geologic relationships and precision of the study cannot be assessed, particularly in the apparent absence of supracrustal rocks of Paleozoic age throughout the Chorts block. These metamorphic rocks were included in his more recent work (Manton and Manton, 1999). Along the northern limit of the Chorts block in Guatemala, between the Motagua and Jocotn faults, orthogneissic units of Las Ovejas Complex in southeastern Guatemala, and equivalent lithologies of Sierra de Omoa in northwestern Honduras (Baaderos complex) were also dated by Rb-Sr as possibly Precambrian (Horne et al., 1976). However, although these rocks are commonly included in the Chorts block, their faultbounded nature casts some doubts on their inclusion within the Chorts block, and thus, we choose to describe them under the intervening domain of fault-bounded crystalline terranes. Well within the Chorts block, crystalline basement units crop out in central Honduras (Fakundiny and Everett, 1976), and northwestern Nicaragua (Nueva Segovia District). The oldest sedimentary packages overlying this basement consist of low grade, Late 8

Triassic (?) to Middle Jurassic marine and continental metasediments of the Agua Fra Formation (Ritchie and Finch, 1985) that, in turn, underlie with strong angular unconformity Lower Cretaceous clastic and carbonate platform marine sequences (Tepemechin Formation and Yojoa Group), followed by red beds of the Upper Cretaceous Valle de Angeles Group. Detailed descriptions of these basement complexes of the Chorts and Maya blocks are given below proceeding from the southeast (Nicaragua) to the northwest (Guatemala, Belize, and southeastern Mexico).

3.1.1.1. Cacaguapa Group (Fakundiny, 1970) and equivalent formations in Nicaragua: (Palacaguina of Zoppis, 1957), and Petn Formation in Honduras (Carpenter, 1954) Extensive outcrop areas in northwestern Nicaragua and northeastern Honduras contain low and very rarely high-grade metamorphic rocks of volcanic and sedimentary origin. They are considered of Paleozoic age because limited radiometric dating (Pushkar et al., in Horne et al., 1976) suggest a maximum Silurian age (412 Ma), and apparently rest unconformably beneath Middle Jurassic rocks of the Agua Fra Formation (Viland et al., 1996), or Late Triassic-Jurassic sedimentary rocks of the El Plan Formation (Carpenter, 1954; Maldonado-Koerdell, 1953). The Cacaguapa Group or Schist (locally called Petn and Palacaguina formations) is described more generally as a sequence of phyllitic micaceous and graphitic rocks with abundant concordant quartz veins and pyrite casts, locally grading to garnet schist, metaconglomerate, quartzite, metavolcanics (meta-andesite and meta-rhyolite), and including a distinctive augenschist characterized by intersecting foliations. In the El Porvenir quadrangle (not shown in Figure 1) of Honduras, Simonson (1981) described epidote-amphibolite facies rocks beneath Jurassic beds that consist of garnet-chloritoid-biotite-albite-chlorite 9

schists, marble, and mylonitic augengneisses with up to three phases of deformation. A few kilometers northeast of La Chacra, in central Honduras, Fakundiny and Everett (1976) report Paleozoic quartz-muscovite schists unconformably overlain by Jurassic shales of the Agua Fra Formation. Particularly intriguing are the antigorite serpentinites and related mafic and ultramafic rocks reported by Emmet (1988) from the Guanaja Quadrangle of central Honduras, as these, possibly ophiolitic tectonites, would suggest the presence of major sutures of unknown age well within the Chorts block. It should be kept in mind that local contact relationships of these higher grade crystalline rocks with the pre-Jurassic phyllitic units have been described as unconformable, tectonic or gradational, and the generally assumed Paleozoic age for the more strongly metamorphosed rocks must be verified before considering them as true pre-Mesozoic basement. 3.1.1.2. Nueva Segovia Schist (Del Giudice, 1960) Most outcrops of this metamorphic complex occur in the alto Ro Coco area of Nueva Segovia District in northwestern Nicaragua (see Figure 4a). They are described as phyllites, quartzites and mica schists, some of which still preserve primary sedimentary features (Paz-Rivera, 1962). However, a small outcrop of these rocks described at Macuelizo, Nueva Segovia by Echvarri-Prez and Rueda-Gaxiola (1962) consists of quartz, muscovite, biotite, sericite, rutile, hematite, chlorite, tourmaline, and opaques. Furthermore, in another local report (Pieiro and Romero, 1962), the metamorphic rocks exposed in a nearby area are described as consisting of schists, phyllites, marbles, quartzites and gneisses, thus indicating the possible presence of basement formations with different ages and exposure depths. The lower grade metamorphic rocks are intensely folded and intruded by abundant veins and pods of quartz. A 10

gneissic rock that crops out near the Carao village over the Mosonte River consists of quartz, biotite and muscovite. The rocks are intruded by batholithic bodies of granitic to dioritic composition, and covered nonconformably by coarse continental clastics of Tertiary age known as Totogalpa Formation (Del Giudice, 1960). According to Rogers (2003) the Middle Jurassic Agua Fra Formation, east of the Guayape fault, shows a transition to low-grade metasediments, which elsewhere have been considered part of the Paleozoic Cacaguapa Schist. On the other hand, the common presence in the Quebrada Santa Ana, and Mosonte River areas of schists and gneisses with biotite, pyroxene, graphite, oligoclase and cordierite, suggests the existence of high-grade rocks.

3.2. Intervening fault-bounded crystalline complexes or terranes Between the Polochic fault in the north and the Jocotn fault in the south, several crustal slices tens of kilometers wide and composed essentially of high-grade crystalline rocks, crop out defining the main mountain ranges of Central Guatemala and northwestern Honduras. The Motagua Valley, on the other hand, is mainly occupied by volcano-sedimentary and low-grade metamorphic rocks of oceanic affinity constituting a composite tectonostratigraphic terrane with its Cenozoic cover: the Late JurassicCretaceous El Tambor Group (McBirney, 1963; McBirney and Bass, 1969; Wilson, 1974; Beccaluva et al., 1995; Giunta et al., 2002. This composite terrane, however, will not be considered in detail here, as it consists of a late Mesozoic accretionary wedge of tectonic slices and melange that rest above, or abut against older basement and pre-Cenozoic units of the Maya and Chorts blocks. At many places most rocks of this Jurassic-Cretaceous sequence appear to form rootless allochthons derived from 11

Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous arc-ocean complexes associated with the evolution of the Caribbean area (Dengo, 1972; Williams, 1975; Rosenfeld, 1981; Lewis et al., 2006). Further descriptions and discussion of tectonic and paleogeographic models constitute a complex subject far beyond the purposes of this paper, which mostly focuses on pre-Mesozoic history of the Chorts-Maya region. 3.2.1. Precambrian Yoro complex South of the Jocotn fault and north of the inferred southern continuation of the AgunEsperanza fault, between the towns of El Progreso and Yoro in northwestern Honduras, high-grade metamorphic and crystalline basement rocks, here named as Yoro Complex, are exposed (Manton, 1996; Manton and Manton, 1999). They extend 60 km along a WNW-trending strip with a maximum width of 10 km, and consist of massive and banded granitic gneisses, together with minor greenschist-lower amphibolite facies micaceous to garnetiferous metapelites, that are intruded by lineated granites. The granites were dated (Manton, 1996) and yielded concordant U-Pb data on zircon at 1000 Ma, with a Sm-Nd model age of 1400 Ma. Low-grade metasedimentary rocks occur in the same area, but their contact relationships are undetermined. Because the age and nature of these high grade rocks differ from adjacent basement units (Las Ovejas Complex on the north, and Cacaguapa Schist on the south), and they lie between the Jocotn fault to the north and Agun-Esperanza faults to the south (see Figures 1 and 10), the Sula-Yoro block may be considered as the southernmost tectonostratigraphic slice interposed between the less deformed Maya and Chorts blocks. 3.2.2. Las Ovejas-Omoa Complex

12

The high-grade metamorphic rocks exposed between the Motagua and the Jocotn faults structurally overlain by ultramafic late Campanian allochthons of El Tambor sequence, were grouped under the name of Las Ovejas Complex (Schwartz, 1977) in Guatemala, and Omoa complex in Honduras (Horne et al., 1976). The former sequence was described in detail at El Progreso quadrangle as consisting of gneiss, schist and migmatite, with sporadic thin beds of white marble, and defining a strip parallel to the E-W trend of the Motagua fault with a maximum width of 22 km. The best outcrops occur between the El Tambor and Las Ovejas rivers, and in the ZacapaGualn area of east-central Guatemala (see Figure 4b). Structurally, Las Ovejas Complex consists of an upper part formed by granitic gneisses and intercalated marble, and a lower sequence of dioritic gneisses and amphibolites. However, common migmatitic aluminous metapelites with garnet, sillimanite, staurolite and potassium feldspar indicate abundant sedimentary protoliths affected by middle to upper amphibolite facies metamorphism that was accompanied by migmatization. Las Ovejas Complex is intruded by the 50 5 Ma (K-Ar) Chiquimula pluton and covered tectonically by the late Campanian to Aptian ophiolitic nappes. Eastwards, Las Ovejas Complex eventually merges with the Omoa Complex in the Sierra de Omoa, of northwestern Honduras. Here, metamorphic rocks near San Pedro Sula are remarkably similar to those of Las Ovejas Complex, except that marbles are poorly represented, whereas kyanite is common along with garnet and staurolite. Poorly defined early Paleozoic to Late Precambrian Rb-Sr ages (980-460 Ma) were reported (Horne et al., 1976) for some of the Omoa orthogneisses (Baaderos Complex) intruding the metasedimentary units. More specifically, these authors dated a granitic pluton at 305 12 Ma (Rb-Sr whole-rock isochron) that crosscuts infolded medium-grade calcareous to silicic and 13

metavolcanic units in the eastern part of Sierra de Omoa. On the other hand, similar low-grade metavolcanic rocks dated as Mesozoic (Ave-Lallemant and Gordon, 1999) occur further east in the Roatn Island. The only well" dated intrusion into the Omoa Complex is an undeformed adamellite-granodiorite pluton yielding an age (Rb-Sr) of 150 Ma. Early Cretaceous sedimentary rocks rest unconformably on the low- and highgrade units in the area, indicating a minimum Jurassic age for the metamorphic basement of this fault-bounded crystalline unit extending between the Motagua and Jocotn faults.

3.2.3. Chuacs Complex Although this metamorphic complex is commonly considered the basement of the Maya block in Guatemala, it is, in fact, bounded by large-scale faults (Baja Verapaz and Motagua), and true unconformable stratigraphic relationships with neighboring late Paleozoic sedimentary rocks of the Santa Rosa Group have not been demonstrated. For this reason, we prefer to group the unit within the fault-bounded tectonostratigraphic domains of Nuclear Central America separating the more stable Maya and Chorts continental blocks. The Chuacs Complex was originally referred to as Chuacs Series (McBirney, 1963) and then changed to Chuacs Group by Kesler et al. (1970). In a more recent publication (Ortega-Gutirrez et al. (2004) proposed the name Chuacs Complex, in conformity with current stratigraphic nomenclature for high-grade metamorphic or structural terranes where primary stratigraphic relations have been essentially destroyed (Whitaker et al., 1991; International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification, 1994). Ortega-Gutirrez et al. (2004) reported a pervasive eclogite 14

facies event that conveyed a fundamentally new tectonic significance to the entire unit because of the strong possibility that pressure conditions occurred in the coesite or diamond fields of ultra-high pressure metamorphism. The type locality lies at the Sierra de Chuacs of central Guatemala, where the first systematic study and definition of the metamorphic unit was published (McBirney, 1963). Later, the sequence was extended and mapped as the Western Chuacs by Kesler et al. (1970), and subdivided into several lithostratigraphic units in areas adjacent to the Motagua fault zone of east central Guatemala (Newcomb, 1978; Roper, 1978). Previous and more detailed studies exist in several unpublished thesis (Bosc, 1971; van den Boom, 1972; Schwartz, 1976). The ages determined for the Chuacs Complex are poorly known, as they range from the Precambrian (e.g. Gomberg et al., 1968), late Paleozoic (Ortega-Gutirrez et al., 2004), to as young as the Late Cretaceous. The metamorphic complex consists throughout of banded, highly aluminous gneisses and schists formed originally in the eclogite and amphibolite facies (see Figures 4c-d) that later underwent several events of retrogression and mylonitization (Figures 4e-f) related to continued orogeny since its formation probably in the Paleozoic (Ortega-Gutirrez et al., 2004). Non-conformable relationships between the upper Paleozoic Santa Rosa Group and the Chuacs Complex, as proposed by McBirney (1963), have been generally considered proof of its prePennsylvanian age (McBirney and Bass, 1969; Carfantan, 1985, p. 196; Donnelly et al., 1990). However, detailed studies carried out by us in the same area (Figure 5), have failed to support this contention and demonstrate instead that the northern limit of the Chuacs Complex is located tens of kilometers south of the Polochic fault, where it is abruptly faulted against a low-grade siliciclastic sequence (the Salam schist of van 15

den Boom, 1972), which in turn was intruded by the Rabinal granite, recently dated as early Paleozoic (Ortega-Obregn, 2005). This relationship may be extended westwards to the Huehuetenango area, where a thin band of low grade metasediments similar to those formerly included in the Salam schist and intruded by muscovite leucogranites strongly resembling certain facies of the Rabinal pluton, separates the Western Chuacs retrograde gneisses to the south, from the Maya block located north of the Polochic fault where the upper Paleozoic Santa Rosa Group is widely exposed. Therefore, in our opinion, the age of the Chuacs Complex is still unconstrained by stratigraphic relations, whilst radiometric ages are also scarce and controversial. The UPb age of 305 5 Ma recently published (Ortega-Gutirrez et al., 2004) for the migmatization event represented in the El Chol area (about 15 km south of Rabinal) within the Chuacs Complex should presently be considered the best evidence for its pre-Mesozoic age. Previously, Gomberg and others (1968) obtained a mixed age from rocks of the Rabinal granite and Chuacs Complex at 1075 25 Ma, but warned about the possibility of zircon inheritance from unknown Precambrian sources. Other Rb-Sr data assigned an age of 395 Ma to one Chuacs gneiss (Pushkar, 1968), whereas most K-Ar data obtained from different minerals (white mica, biotite, and hornblende) across all of the Chuacs Complex and published by several authors (Gomberg et al., 1968; Ortega-Gutirrez et al., 2004), fall in a narrow interval between about 70-60 Ma, indicating a pervasive, Late Cretaceous event superposed on the Chuacs Complex that reset all relatively low temperature geoclocks. However, provided there is no excess argon, a previous event may be recorded in some hornblendes from Chuacs amphibolites that yielded a 40Ar/39Ar age of 238 Ma (Donnelly et al., 1990), and several

16

Paleozoic hornblende and mica dates that we have measured (unpublished data) in migmatitic gneisses at El Chol area.

3.2.4. San Gabriel-Rabinal suite Low-grade clastic rocks, here referred to as the San Gabriel sequence after a small town between the cities of Salam and Rabinal (see Figure 5), crop out in close intrusive relationship with the Rabinal granite of the Baja Verapaz area. This unit was formerly considered part of the Chuacs Complex and named the Salam schist (van den Boom, 1972). It constitutes a critical and independent sequence separating highgrade gneisses of the Chuacs Complex to the south, from typical Paleozoic sedimentary and probably Precambrian basement rocks of the Maya block to the north. The newly-defined Baja Verapaz shear zone (Ortega-Obregn et al., 2004) (Figure 5) defines a wide (ca.10 km), moderately south-dipping, left-lateral oblique thrust that places retrograde gneisses of the Chuacs Complex above the low-grade granitemetasedimentary terrane to the north. Whereas intrusive relationships of the Rabinal granite and the San Gabriel sequence are clearly exposed between the towns of Salam and Rabinal, similar granites at Huehuetenango intruding the Chuacs Complex and low-grade units comparable to the San Gabriel sequence may or may not correspond with the Rabinal granite. At Chixolop (Figure 5), a small village east of Salam, deformed limestone and shales with conodonts of Early Mississippian age, and thus older than the Sacapulas Formation of the Maya block, rest unconformably on the San Gabriel sequence and the Rabinal granite (Ortega-Obregn et al., 2004, OrtegaObregn, 2005) indicating a pre-Mississippian stratigraphic age for both units. On the other hand, near the village of San Francisco (see Figure 5) and at the eastern road 17

entrance to Salam, coarse-grained sedimentary units, including basal metaconglomerates with abundant pebbles of deformed (mylonitized) and undeformed granites similar to Rabinal granite, may represent strata equivalent to the Sacapulas Formation. These granitic pebbles in the basal conglomerates at San Francisco and Salam support an important nonconformity between the late Paleozoic rocks above, and the Rabinal granite-San Gabriel sequence below. The observed stratigraphic relationships are consistent with K-Ar ages recently obtained by us for igneous muscovite books in pegmatites of the Rabinal Granite intruding the San Gabriel sequence, which dated the granite between 440 and 429 Ma (Ortega-Obregn, 2005).

3.3 Maya block The Maya block is currently extended westward across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec into the Mixtequita area, where Grenvillian basement granulite facies rocks are intruded by late Paleozoic to Jurassic plutons (Weber and Khler, 2001; Restrepo-Pace et al., 2002). However, east of the Tehuantepec Isthmus, the Maya block is extensively covered by Mesozoic and Cenozoic formations, and only in the Chicomuselo area, the Maya Mountains of Belize (Dixon, 1955; Steiner and Walker, 1996; Steiner, 2006), the Chiapas batholith (Schaaf et al., 2002; Weber et al., 2005), and in the core of the Altos Cuchumatanes in Guatemala (Anderson et al., 1973; this work) pre-Mesozoic crystalline rocks and late Paleozoic sedimentary units are well exposed. On the other hand, east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec exposed Grenvillian crust is essentially absent, thus making the Grenvillian integrity of the Maya block across the isthmus suspect. 3.3.1. The Chiapas batholith 18

The Pacific coast along the entire state of Chiapas in southeastern Mexico is formed by a continuous crystalline complex known as the Chiapas batholith because most of its rocks are intrusive granitoids dated as late Paleozoic to Triassic (Schaaf et al., 2002; Weber et al., 2005), with only a few younger (Jurassic) and possibly older (early Paleozoic and Neoproterozoic) outliers. In fact, only a few pre-batholithic rocks were previously known (Pantoja-Alor et al., 1974; Damon et al., in Salas, 1975), until Weber et al., (2005) recently documented an extensive orogenic event 250-254 Ma old, including abundant high-grade metamorphic rocks in the Chiapas batholith. These rocks are represented by migmatites, ortho-, and para-gneisses intruded by undeformed plutons with ages around 250 Ma. This deep orogenic event is not registered in the Pennsylvanian-Permian sedimentary rocks exposed in the Chicomuselo area, which extend along the strike to meet the upper Paleozoic Santa Rosa Group of west central Guatemalan. Direct contact relationships of the Paleozoic-earliest Mesozoic granitoids and the older sedimentary units are mostly buried beneath a thick blanket (> 2000 m) of Middle Jurassic red beds of the Todos Santos Formation. However, the presence of chiastolite (andalusite) and granitic dikes within sedimentary rocks closely bordering the granitoids in the Chicomuselo area (Carfantan, 1985), and clearly exposed in the Valle de Obregn-Amatenango de la Frontera area, demonstrate intrusive relationships, in accord with the younger radiometric ages obtained from the granites and the paleontologic evidence of possible Mississippian to Early Permian age of the sedimentary rocks at Chicomuselo (Hernndez-Garca, 1973). Although inherited Grenvillian zircons are commonly found in the granitoids (Weber et al., 2005), no pre-late Paleozoic crystalline rocks of any kind have been satisfactorily identified in the entire massif. Stratigraphic relationships in the southeastern sector of 19

the batholith show pre-Middle Jurassic marine sedimentary rocks overlying high-grade gneisses in the Honduras-Pablo Galeana area north of Motozintla. At Barranca Honda, near the villages of Honduras and Paisthal (not shown in map), crystalline basement rocks for the late Paleozoic sequence of Chicomuselo are probably exposed (Carfantan, 1985, p. 116). The sedimentary sequence is represented either by basal conglomerates, followed by black metapelites and intruded by granites, or unconformably covered by the Jurassic red beds with basal units containing abundant pebbles of gneisses, schists, and vein quartz. Additional possible basement rocks found in our study consist of retrograde, high-grade, quartzo-feldspathic gneisses including wide bands of garnet amphibolite that suggest minimum formation pressures of 8-12 kbar (e.g. Liu et al., 1996). These pressures stand in contrast with the relatively low pressures (up to 5.8 kbar at 730-780 C) of metamorphism (Hiller et al., 2004) and the post-Early Permian ages that characterize the paragneissic rocks elsewhere in the Chiapas batholith. 3.3.2. Maya Mountains Pre-Mesozoic crystalline, sedimentary and volcanic rocks crop out in the Maya Mountains of Belize in the heart of the Maya block (Hall and Bateson, 1972; Kesler et al., 1973; Bateson and Hall, 1977; Steiner and Walker, 1996). Most of the area (about 8000 km2) consists of upper Paleozoic fossiliferous sedimentary rocks of the Santa Rosa Group, with the remainder occupied by several plutons, the age of which range from Silurian to Permian or Triassic (Bateson and Hall, 1977; Steiner and Walker, 1996). On the other hand, high-grade metamorphic rocks have not been encountered in the region, and intrusive relationships between some of the plutons and the Santa Rosa Group rocks are inconclusive. Steiner and Walker (1996) offered a 20

detailed description of the igneous bodies, which in general consist of undeformed, twomica granitoids that range in composition from granite to diorite. Three main bodies were studied, Mountain Ridge, Cockscomb-Sapote, and Hummingbird. The two former are similar and consisting of leucocratic, unfoliated muscovite-biotite-perthite-oligoclasetourmaline granite rich in alkalis (up to 8.32 wt %) and silica (75.58 wt %), whereas the latter is a granodiorite with 65-66 SiO2 wt %. The zircon U-Pb Devonian-latest Silurian ages (404-418 Ma) obtained by Steiner and Walker (1996) for three of the Maya Mountains plutons unfortunately are not well constrained because of strong isotopic disturbance and paucity of data. Monazite in one of these granites yielded similar Late Silurian ages, but the data are highly (14-30 %) discordant. Moreover, some of the conglomerates in the upper Paleozoic sequence include pebbles of contact metamorphic sedimentary rocks, and one of the plutons dated as Silurian is surrounded by andalusite-bearing pelites, locally with abundant biotite, sillimanite, garnet, and staurolite probably of the Pennsylvanian Santa Rosa Group, indicating, in this case, a younger age for the intrusion. Steiner and Walker (1996) explained this apparent inconsistency in terms of a hypothetical hydrothermal event triggered by the breakup of Pangea in the Late Triassic. The common presence in the pelitic rocks of the Santa Rosa Group of chiastolite (a variety of andalusite) demonstrates that some of these plutons intruded the upper Pennsylvanian-Lower Permian sequence, and consequently that they may be of latest Paleozoic to Triassic age. Older formations in the basement of the Maya block are represented by zircon populations ejected in the Cretaceous from the Chicxulub crater (Krogh et al., 1993). They yielded a dominant basement component of 544 5 and 559 5 Ma, and minor populations at 418 6, 320 31, and 286 14 Ma. 21

3.3.3. Altos Cuchumatanes The metamorphic rocks of the Altos Cuchumatanes uplift are only poorly known. As described by Anderson et al., (1973), they consist chiefly of gneiss, schist, amphibolite, and metavolcanic and metaplutonic rocks. Based on relict textures and intense superposed retrogression and cataclasis, these authors considered that the original rocks were in the upper greenschist and lower amphibolite facies. However, most of the rocks described in the area lie south of, or at the Polochic fault in the Huehuetenango District (e.g. Colotenango, Santa Barbara, San Sebastin, and Selegua river areas), and thus they may or may not belong to the Maya block, but instead could be part of the fault-bounded Chuacs Complex, or of the structurally underlying Rabinal granite and San Gabriel sequence (Ortega-Obregn et al., 2004). Within the dissected part of the Altos Cuchumatanes uplift, 30-40 km north of the Polochic fault trace and near the town of Barillas (see Figure 1), metamorphic rocks were described to consist of low-grade metasedimentary rocks (slate and phyllite) correlative with the lower Santa Rosa Group, as well as limited outcrops of underlying biotite gneiss, and amphibolite. Abundant granites probably intruded the phyllites because they contain andalusite. Anderson et al., (1973) described the core of the Altos Cuchumatanes as consisting mainly of biotite gneiss, mica schist, and amphibolite correlative with the metamorphic units exposed at or south the Polochic fault in the Huehuetenango area (Western Chuacs Group of Kesler and others, 1970). However, along the Amelco River near the town of Barillas, we found well-exposed high-grade crystalline rocks of metamorphic and igneous origin, including probable high-pressure lithologies consisting of strongly retrogressed kyanite schists and garnet amphibolites.

22

These rocks are comparable with certain facies of the Chuacs Complex, but differ from it by the lack of muscovite, which characterizes everywhere the latter unit.

4. PRE-JURASSIC COVER 4.1. Chorts block No sedimentary or volcanic rocks of proved Paleozoic age are known anywhere in the Chorts block, even if it is extended to the Motagua fault. However, in Honduras (San Juancito area), phyllitic rocks (Agua Fra Formation?) as old as Late Triassic were reported (Maldonado-Koerdell, 1953) based on the presence of Palaeoneilo sp. and Tropites Mojsisovics, which are similar to marine fossils from the well-known Upper Triassic Zacatecas Formation of north central Mexico. The underlying Cacaguapa or Nueva Segovia schists, on the other hand, are considered of Paleozoic age, but this age has not been proven either. In fact, Rogers (2003) has suggested that there may be a transitional contact between the Agua Fra Formation of Middle Jurassic age and these basement units. It is clear that this conundrum in the stratigraphy of the Chorts block deserves the priority attention of researchers interested in finding a home place for the Chorts block. 4.2. Fault-bounded complexes The fault-bounded crustal slice situated between Jocotn and Motagua faults, whose crystalline basement is considered to be Las Ovejas and Baaderos complexes, includes sedimentary (San Diego Phyllite) and igneous rocks (granitoids) of possible Paleozoic age, overlain by marine Cretaceous strata. Because the San Diego Phyllite has been correlated with the late Paleozoic Santa Rosa Group of the Maya block and is 23

intruded by granitoids as old as Early Jurassic (Hirshman, 1963; Lawrence, 1975; Horne et al., 1976), it is currently considered of possible Paleozoic age. However, the San Diego Phyllite lacks any fossils and its contact relationships with Las Ovejas Complex is either faulted or unexposed (e.g., Lawrence, 1975). Apart from this intriguing and extensive unit, which crops out on both sides of the Jocotn fault, not other sedimentary or volcanic units of presumed Paleozoic age have been found south of the Motagua fault. The San Diego Phyllite is lithologically similar to both, the lowgrade phyllites of the pre-Jurassic Palacaguina and Cacaguapa formations, and to the slightly metamorphosed phyllites of the Middle Jurassic Agua Fra Formation, and thus it cannot be specifically correlated on this basis with any of these units that characterize the metamorphic basement of the Chorts block. The sequence in the San Diego-La Union region located between the Motagua and Jocotn faults consists of very low grade (subgreenschist facies) carbonate-free, siliciclastic laminated units varying from dark metapelite to feldspathic schist and fine grained conglomerates with clasts of chert, quartzose rocks, vein quartz and pyrite cubes reminiscent of those abundantly found in the Cacaguapa Schist. Locally, it contains a marked fine-grained tuffaceous component of felsic and intermediate composition mixed with the carbonaceous phyllites. It shows a single penetrative foliation with local crenulation folding. The crystalline basement rocks exposed between the Motagua and Polochic faults are covered by sedimentary and volcanic rocks deposits of Cenozoic age. The Chuacs Complex situated between the Motagua and Baja Verapaz faults is unconformably overlain only by upper Cenozoic volcanics. On the other hand, ophiolitic units of the Upper Jurassic-Cretaceous El Tambor sequence were thrust over the Chuacs Complex during the Campanian (e. g. Fourcade et al., 1994) thus implying a minimum 24

Cretaceous age for the overridden basement. Although sedimentary and volcanic rocks assigned to the late Paleozoic Santa Rosa Group crop out south of the Polochic fault in the San Sebastin Huehuetenango and Sacapulas areas (Bohnemberger, 1966; Anderson et al., 1973; Clemons et al., 1974), as well as in the Baja Verapaz area, direct contact relationships with the Chuacs Complex are not clearly exposed and may be tectonic, as documented further east in the Salam area (Ortega-Obregn et al., 2005). Moreover, no rocks of Jurassic age that commonly blanket the Chorts and Maya blocks have been reported in the cover of any of the fault-bounded complexes, possibly due to either non-deposition or profound erosion. Finally, the mountainous, west-trending strip located between the Baja Verapaz shear zone to the south and the Polochic fault to the north contains the Silurian Rabinal granite and the intruded San Gabriel sedimentary sequence covered by a sedimentary sequence correlated with the Sacapulas Formation of Pennsylvanian age. The Early Mississippian strata reported from this unit, however, is older than the Santa Rosa Group typical of the Maya terrane Paleozoic cover, and thus cast some doubts about their continuity across the Polochic fault.

4.3. Maya block Mississippian (?) to Early Permian marine sedimentary rocks crop out abundantly in SE Mexico along the NE flank of the Chiapas batholith near the Guatemalan border (Hernndez-Garca, 1973), in the Maya Mountains of Belize (Dixon, 1955; Batson, 1972; Batson and Hall, 1977) and in dispersed small outcrops along west central Guatemala north, and probably south of the Polochic fault (Bohnenberger, 1966; Anderson et al., 1973; Clemons et al., 1974; Vachard et al., 1997). 25

4.3.1. West central Guatemala Chicol Formation The type locality was defined 2-5 km southeast of San Sebastin Huehuetenango, where rocks exposed along the Chicol and Selegua Rivers on both sides of the Polochic fault consist of 1000 m of coarse clastics and volcanic rocks affected by deformation and low-grade regional and contact metamorphism. Granitic sills and dikes intruding the conglomeratic units (Anderson et al., 1973) may have been fed by the large intrusive bodies that crop out in the Huehuetenango area, south of the Polochic fault. Moreover, the abundance of conglomerates in the unit suggested to Anderson et al. (1973) tectonic and volcanic activity as old as late Paleozoic associated with a precursor or ancestral Polochic fault. Unfortunately, the formation is bounded by faults associated with the splayed termination of the Polochic fault in Mexico, and neither its Paleozoic age nor its presence south of the main trace of the Polochic fault are certain. Nevertheless, the Chicol Formation was correlated by Anderson et al. (1973) with the late Paleozoic Sacapulas Formation defined by Bohnemberger (1966) about 60 km east of Huehuetenango, but based only on their lithologic similarities. Sacapulas Formation (Bohnemberger, 1966) According to Donnelly et al. (1990) this unit may be up to 1200 m thick and is similar in lithology (volcanosedimentary) to the Chicol Formation, although topped by distinctive limestone beds. It is locally considered to form the base of the upper Paleozoic Santa Rosa Group and has been be extended to the Salam area, about 30 km south of the Polochic fault, where it unconformably overlies pre-Devonian, low grade metasediments of the San Gabriel sequence and the Rabinal granite. Tactic Formation (Anderson et al., 1973) 26

This unit consists of interbedded black shale, quartzite and rare beds of limestone and dolomite. It crops out at or north of Polochic fault and may be more than 800 m thick, locally converted to slate and phyllite by incipient metamorphism and strong deformation. Esperanza Formation (Anderson et al., 1973) This unit is a fossiliferous, 470 m thick sequence of dark shales and siltstones that grades into the underlying Tactic Formation, but is distinguished from the latter by the abundance of >5 m thick limestone beds. The Esperanza Formation grades upwards into more massive Leonardian carbonates of the Chchal Formation. Chchal Formation (Roberts and Irving, 1957) This unit and equivalent carbonates in Mexico cap the late Paleozoic sedimentary column of the Maya terrane. It consists of 500-1000 m of fossiliferous, massive limestone and dolomite with shale intervals that locally grade into the underlying Tactic Formation. The abundance and preservation of fossils indicate an age as young as Roadian (Vachard et al., 2004) at the base of the middle Permian. 4.3.2. Maya Mountains (Belize) This area exposes by far the majority of late Paleozoic sedimentary rocks in the entire Maya block. Dixon (1955) first described and named the sedimentary and metamorphic rocks widely exposed in the Maya Mountains of Belize. He subdivided the sequence into two separate Series, the Maya (graywackes, phyllites, shales, quartzite, shales, and some schists and gneisses), and the Macal (conglomerate, sandstone and shales with Late Pennsylvanian to Middle Permian fossils). Kesler et al. (1971) questioned this subdivision as they found neither a regional unconformity within the sequence, nor schists or gneisses, and only one penetrative folding phase affecting both units. 27

Therefore, those authors proposed the Macal Group be extended to the entire sequence and be considered equivalent to the Santa Rosa Group. The Santa Rosa Group in the Maya Mountains of Belize (Maya and Macal series) consists of slightly metamorphosed shale, graywacke, quartzite, conglomerate and some limestone with late Pennsylvanian to middle Permian fusulinids, and includes some schists and gneisses (Dixon, 1955). Distinctive felsic volcanic rocks in the sequence were mapped as the Bladen Volcanic Member, which together with the plutonic rocks yielded K-Ar and Rb apparent Triassic ages between 205 and 237 Ma (Steiner and Walker, 1996). The volcanic rocks include alkalic rhyolite breccias and andesitic lavas exposed along an ENE-trending band 25 long and 7 km wide (Bateson and Hall, 1971). Unfortunately, contact relationships with neighboring plutonic units are poorly known and for the most part faulted. Although a plethora of local names were assigned to this sequence of slightly metamorphosed rocks, they may be included in the Santa Rosa Group, which in Guatemala consists of the Chicol and Sacapulas formations of Pennsylvanian age at the base, and capped by the Chchal Limestone of Leonardian age (Figure 6). Bateson (1972) and Bateson and Hall (1977) described a large area about 4200 km2 (70 x 60 km) trending N60E in the Maya Mountains, where the late Paleozoic rocks are better exposed. Intrusive granitoids compose about 500 km2 of the outcrop area, and a thick volcanic unit named the Bladen Volcanic Member formed by mixed rhyolitic, tuffs and lavas within the sedimentary rocks was separately mapped as a member of the Group. The Late Pennsylvanian age assigned to part of the sequence on the basis of its fossils is consistent with the Rb-Sr whole-rock isochron age of 300 Ma for one of the intrusive granitoids (Bateson, 1972). Intrusive relationships are supported by the growth of andalusite porphyroblasts as large as 15 cm and small grains of sillimanite in the 28

contact with the surrounding sedimentary rocks. Garnet, biotite and staurolite also occur locally indicating a considerable depth of intrusion. 4.3.3. Chicomuselo area (SE Mexico) Late Paleozoic, shallow sedimentary and low-grade metamorphic marine rocks are continuously exposed within an anticlinorium trending WNW in southeastern Chiapas, Mexico. The outcrops extend from Comalapa at the border of Guatemala to the Concordia area for nearly 100 km along the strike and are about 30 km wide. They contain fossiliferous Middle Pennsylvanian-Early Permian and probably Mississippian, clastic units in the core, and Permian shales and carbonates in the limbs of the structure (Hernndez-Garca, 1973). These rocks are poorly studied and their total thickness estimates vary from about 2700 m (Gutirrez-Gil, 1956) to more than 7500 m (Hernndez-Garca, 1973); they have been correlated with the Santa Rosa Group of Guatemala, and formally subdivided into a lower, weakly metamorphic section (slatemetaquartzite) of apparent Late Mississippian age, and an upper, unmetamorphosed section where carbonates rich in fusulinids indicate an Early Permian age for the youngest carbonates. The contact between the two sequences is an angular unconformity, which indicates important Carboniferous orogenic perturbations in this region before the Middle Pennsylvanian. 5. ULTRAMAFIC BODIES The area between the Jocotn and Polochic fault systems and a few kilometers south of Siuna in northwestern Nicaragua (Baumgartner, 2004), contain allochthonous bodies of partly to completely serpentinized peridotites, varying in size from a few hundred meters up to 80 x 10 km associated with other members of an ophiolitic complex. Main outcrops of this suite occur in the Sierra Santa Cruz of east central Guatemala 29

(Rosenfeld, 1981). Because mantle rocks in orogenic systems commonly mark the site of fundamental faults (sutures), establishing the crystallization and emplacement ages of these bodies would be germane to the tectonic interpretation of the Maya-Chorts connections in the past. Although the ultramafic units in Guatemala are now considered part of the Late Jurassic-Cretaceous El Tambor Group, in his pioneer work on the basement rocks of the Sierra de Chuacs, McBirney (1963) considered the serpentinites as the main Paleozoic or Precambrian basement for the rest of the rock column, including the highly metamorphosed units of the Chuacs Complex. Indeed, the reported presence of serpentinite within the Chuacs Complex west of Rabinal (van den Boom, 1972), and as cobbles in basal conglomerates of the Middle Jurassic Todos Santos Formation (cf. Anderson et al., 1973, p. 809), as well as the serpentinite mlange tectonically beneath the Santa Rosa Group just north of Huehuetenango (Anderson et al., 1973), indicate the existence of pre-Jurassic serpentinites associated with a protracted history for some of these major tectonic boundaries.

6. INTRUSIVE POST-PALEOZOIC BODIES Mesozoic and Cenozoic plutonic igneous rocks of granitic to gabbroic composition are mainly found in the Chorts block, but are present in all tectonostratigraphic domains (see Weyl, 1980, Table 9, p. 192-193 for a comprehensive compilation up to that year). In the interior of the Maya block, several Cretaceous to Tertiary intrusions are exposed in the Chiapas batholith and adjacent to the Polochic fault. In the Altos Cuchumatanes generally undated deformed and undeformed granitic intrusions are common. The only one for which a radiometric age exists in this latter area is a deformed granitoid exposed in the Poxlac area, with a K-Ar date of 196 Ma reported by Donnelly et al. (1990). Las 30

Ovejas Complex, south of the Motagua fault, is intruded by the Chiquimula pluton dated (K-Ar) at 50 5 Ma (Clemons and Long, 1971), and the Palacaguina Formation in the Chorts block is intruded by a pluton with a four-point Rb-Sr isochron age (Horne et al., 1976) of 140 15 Ma. Several large intrusive granitoids are known from central Honduras, with K-Ar hornblendes ages ranging from 55 1.1 to 123 2 Ma, and from 59 1 to 118 2 Ma on biotites (McDowell, in Gose, 1985). At San Marcos, Honduras a granitic pluton dated at 149 7 Ma (Rb-Sr) intrudes the metamorphic basemement (Horne et al., 1976). The Chuacs Complex contains scarce granitic intrusions, of which the largest one is the Matanzas granite that intrudes biotite gneisses of the Chuacs Complex in the northern slopes of Sierra Chuacs (McBirney, 1963). A Rb-Sr whole rock-mineral analyses performed on this body yielded ages of 250 and 280 Ma, assuming 86Sr/87Sr initial ratios of 0.707 and 0.703 respectively (McBirney and Bass, 1969), whereas biotite and muscovite separates yielded Ar-Ar ages ranging from 161 to 213 Ma (cf. Donnelly et al., 1990, p. 44). These data, if true, reinforce the pre-Mesozoic age generally assigned to the Chuacs Complex. Other intrusive rocks in the Chorts block, mostly dated as Late Cretaceous-Paleogene, form voluminous batholiths, which are commonly associated with skarn metallic deposits at contact zones with the massive Cretaceous carbonates (i.e., Drobe and Crane, 2001). Along the Motagua valley and south of Motagua fault, several intrusive bodies stitching the Las Ovejas Complex (Omoa Complex of Horne et al., 1976) and the San Diego Phyllite, yielded apparent Rb/Sr and 39Ar/Ar40 ages from 104 to 35 Ma (Donnelly et al., 1990).

31

7. TECTONOSTRATIGRAPHIC APPROACH Although the golden age for the terrane paradigm born in the early eighties and successfully used across the world and into the present century (e. g. Coney et al., 1980; Jones et al. 1983; Howell et al., 1985; Dickinson and Lawton, 2001) appears to have passed, there are areas such as Central America where the concept has not been systematically applied despite the obvious complexity of its rock units and the hefty faults that characterize the area. As described above, the land extending more than a thousand kilometers from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the Maya block to central Nicaragua in the Chorts block, includes major displaced pieces of past and present orogens that have to be considered separately because each package is characterized by fault-bounded geologic entities that comply fully with the canonical definition of a terrane (Coney et al., 1980).

7.1. Southern boundary of the Maya block and formerly proposed tectonostratigraphic terranes in Nuclear Central America

The Maya block is currently considered to abut the Chorts block at the Motagua fault system (e.g. Dengo, 1969; Av-Lallemant and Gordon, 1999) without consideration of the different crystalline complexes that characterize the intervening region between the two continental platforms. Furthermore, the very presence along the Motagua valley of the widespread El Tambor Group, composed of ocean-kindred successions that are tectonically emplaced on all high-grade crystalline terranes from the Chorts to the Maya blocks, indicate considerable displacements and plate interactions in the region that render the Chorts-Maya connection a rather complex suture zone. 32

Using the late Paleozoic sedimentary cover (Santa Rosa Group) of the Chicomuselo basin in southeastern Mexico, north-central Guatemala (Altos Cuchumatanes), and widely exposed in central Belize (Maya Mountains) as a critical stratigraphic reference for the identification of the Maya block, the main trace of the Polochic fault could not represent such limit if clastic and calcareous rocks of Paleozoic age (Bonis, 1967; Vachard et al., 2000) are proved to stratigraphically overlie crystalline basement (e.g. Chuacs Complex) south of the fault. In their detailed geologic map Anderson et al. (1973) show the Chicol Formation of Pennsylvanian age cropping out on both sides of the Polochic fault, implying little or no post-Paleozoic displacement there. However, the very small exposure of Chicol Formation (3 km2) mapped south of the fault, may constitute a rootless allochthonous mass displaced from the north across the Polochic fault, which probably exposes pre-Middle Jurassic serpentinite at the foot of the scarp just of north of Huehuetenango; this age is suggested by the presence of pebbles of serpentinite in the overlying Middle Jurassic red beds of the Todos Santos Formation. Our current studies in that area, demonstrate that tens of kilometers south of Polochic fault, at the Rabinal-Salam region, late Paleozoic fossiliferous sedimentary rocks as old as Early Mississippian (van den Boom, 1972; Ortega-Obregn, 2005) were deposited on low-grade metasediments (San Gabriel sequence) intruded by the Rabinal granite, the igneous micas of which yield K-Ar ages between 429 and 440 Ma (OrtegaObregn, 2005). However, these late Paleozoic fossiliferous rocks may or may not be continuous with Santa Rosa Group of the Maya block because its age is Late Pennsylvanian to Early Permian, and lack Early Mississippian strata. Thus, the crustal slice in the Baja Verapaz district of Guatemala, bounded by the Polochic fault to the north and by the Baja Verapaz fault to the south, is stratigraphically suspect and may or 33

may not constitute a new tectonostratigraphic terrane accreted to the Maya block in the Carboniferous. Because rocks equivalent to San Gabriel or Rabinal units have not been found intruding or covering the Chuacs Complex, but they are tectonically juxtaposed along the Baja Verapaz shear zone (Figure 5), we prefer to define the true northern boundary of the Chuacs Complex along this newly defined shear zone (OrtegaObregn et al., 2004). However, the absence of ophiolitic units occupying the Baja Verapaz fault zone and its dominant left lateral component, may also suggest that the Chuacs Complex and San Gabriel-Rabinal units belong to the Maya continental margin, which were later sliced off from that margin during the Late Cretaceous left oblique collisional orogeny, and then again displaced in the Cenozoic by left lateral movements associated with the active Polochic-Motagua fault system. Reconnaissance studies recently performed in the core of the Cuchumatanes uplift by us, revealed garnet-rich banded gneiss, garnet amphibolites and kyanite schist (suggesting former eclogite facies rocks), intruded by deformed and undeformed preJurassic plutons of possible Permian-Triassic age. This high grade crystalline basement is best exposed along the Amelco and Ixbal rivers between the villages of Barillas in the north, and Soloma in the south (see Figure 1), where it seems to be covered by sedimentary rocks of the Santa Rosa Group, indicating an early Paleozoic or Precambrian age for the basement of the Maya block in this area.

7.2. Current terrane subdivisions in the study area Case et al., (1984) distinguished over 100 geologic provinces in the Caribbean-Central America region, including tectonostratigraphic terranes if bounded by major faults. In the area of our study, they distinguished about 10 of these geologic provinces, but did not 34

explain which of them were tectonostratigraphic terranes, nor which specific faults defined the respective boundaries. Nevertheless, they referred to the Chorts block and the Motagua zone as superterranes. Based mainly on Pb isotopes of mineral deposits distributed across most of the Central American region (Figure 7) and magnetic anomalies, Rogers (2003) proposed five major terranes forming the Chorts block in Honduras dubbed as Northern, Central, and Eastern Chorts continental terranes, together with the Mesozoic Southern Chorts arc and Siuna oceanic terranes (Venable, 1994). Note that this usage does not conform to the standard definition of tectonostratigraphic terranes that is based on stratigraphy: Pb isotopes and magnetic anomalies may reflect such terrane boundaries, but the initial definition requires a stratigraphic basis. On the other hand, the oceanic stratigraphy of Siuna terrane, in contrast with the continental nature of the Chortis block, does qualify it as a tectonostratigraphic terrane. Probably the most striking fact in this subdivision is the similarity of the Pb isotopes of the Central Chorts and Maya terranes in spite of the intervening ophiolitic complexes and the Motagua, Baja Verapaz, and Polochic fault zones, as well as their different basement and cover stratigraphies. The Eastern Chorts (floored by Jurassic sedimentary rocks), and Siuna terranes, on the other hand, plot well outside the Maya lead isotopes, possibly indicating their younger origins. It should be pointed out that the Central and Northern Chorts terranes of Rogers (2003) contain the highest grade metamorphic complexes so far described from Central America, namely Las Ovejas Complex of unknown, possibly Paleozoic age, and yet correlated with the Yoro Complex, dated as Grenvillian. The Southern Chorts arc terrane is shown by Rogers (2003, his Figure 5.8) as a Late Cretaceous (80 Ma) tectonic accretion to the Pacific margin of the Chorts block synchronously with the 35

emplacement of the Guerrero terrane onto the western margin of Mexico, whereas the Siuna oceanic terrane was accreted to the Chorts block later by CretaceousPaleogene times during the full collision of the Caribbean plate onto the southern edge of the Maya block. Implicit in this subdivision is the direct connection between the Chorts and the Maya blocks, with the latter extending south of the Polochic fault as far south as the Motagua fault, thus comprising within the same block the fault-bounded Chuacs and San Gabriel-Rabinal crystalline complexes. The 300 km long transcontinental Guayape fault (Finch and Ritchie, 1991; Gordon and Muehelberger, 1994) juxtaposing blocks with exposed pre-Mesozoic crust and younger Mesozoic formations, may represent another major terrane boundary within the Chorts block, thus making this region a truly composite superterrane. However, the Agua Fra Formation of Middle Jurassic age was deposited synchronously with dextral displacements along the fault and lays on either side of it (Gordon, 1993); therefore, the accretion of terranes along this fault, if at all real, occurred before the Jurassic. However, a full discussion on the nature and evolution of possible terranes within the Chorts block is again beyond the scope of the present study. On the other hand, Keppie (2004) divided the region into three blocks: Chorts, Motagua and Maya based on the occurrence of ophiolites in the Motagua terrane between two continental terranes. 7.3. Proposed terrane subdivision The former and more recent terrane subdivision (Rogers, 2003) followed geophysical and geochemical criteria based mainly on buried properties of the crust beneath the Chorts block. We prefer to follow more specific stratigraphic and structural criteria that are visible in the geology of each packet for the definition of terranes in the wider 36

Central America area (Figure 8). Based on our field work on the crystalline complexes exposed from the Maya to the Chorts blocks as described above, and a review of the literature that document the presence of major tectonic boundaries truncating their stratigraphic packages, our terrane names were chosen following the traditional usage for Central America established by Dengo, (1969), and Anderson and Schmidt (1983), who named major tectonic blocks in Mesoamerica after the dominant preHispanic cultures in each region as Maya, Chorts, and Chorotega. From south to north, we have recognized in the Nuclear Central American region seven fault-bounded geologic entities (Figure 8) characterized by notable contrasts in their basement complexes (shown between parentheses), and supracrustal cover as follows: 1. Chorts (Cacaguapa Group of unknown age, possibly Paleozoic). 2. Yoro (Grenvillian complex). 3. Sula (Las Ovejas Complex of unknown, possibly Paleozoic age). 4. Motagua (Jurassic oceanic crust). 5. Jacalteco (Chuacs Complex of apparent Paleozoic age). 6. Ach (early Paleozoic San Gabriel-Rabinal suite). 7. Maya (Barillas complex of unknown, possibly Paleozoic or Precambrian age). The poor age constraints for many of these units led one of us (JDK) to prefer the term, fault blocks for most of the terranes, as contrasts could merely reflect different aged units. These blocks are separated from south to north by the Agun-La Ceiba, Jocotn, Motagua, Baja Verapaz (this work), and Polochic faults. The eastern limit of the Chorts block is currently defined by the Hess Escarpment and its projection across Nicaragua; however, the recent discovery of mafic and ultramafic rocks in northeastern Nicaragua (Baumgartner et al., 2004), which have been associated with the western boundary of an oceanic terrane in Nicaragua (Siuna) have major implications about the true extension of the Chorts block as a pre-Mesozoic continental block. 37

Most probably the Chorts and Yoro terranes, although they preserve different basement units (Paleozoic and Grenvillian outcrops respectively), belong to the same block, considering that the Agun fault is not a conspicuous structure as the other terrane-boundary faults are. However, marked differences in basement age and lithology, make the Yoro a tectonostratigraphic unit until better dating and geologic mapping is done in the area. Also, the apparent presence of the Santa Rosa and Chochal formations south of the Polochic and, if fully documented, would extend the Maya block down to the northern edge of the Baja Verapaz shear zone, thus deleting the Ach terrane (Rabinal-San Gabriel suite) to include it in the Maya terrane or block.

8. PAST POSITIONS OF CHORTS BLOCK The origin of the Chorts block has been a matter of debate ever since the first publication on the reconstruction of Pangea (Bullard et al., 1965) placed the entire region overlapping with the South American Plate. Several models have considered the pre-Cenozoic position of the Chorts block in contrasting paleogeographic scenarios: In Pangean reconstructions (Triassic-Jurassic) the Chortis block has been placed a) filling the Gulf of Mexico (Freeland and Dietz, 1971), b) attached to southern Mexico in the Pacific (Karig et al., 1978; Pindell and Dewey, 1982; Anderson and Schmidt, 1983; Wadge and Burke, 1983; Pindell, 1982, 1985, 2006; Pindell et al., 1988; Ross and Scotese, 1990; Meshede and Frisch, 1998; Dickinson and Lawton, 2001; Harlow et al., 2004). In pre-Pangean times (Paleozoic and Precambrian) the Chorts block has been attached to northwestern South America (Keppie, 1977; Keppie and Ramos, 1999; Keppie, 2004)). In Cenozoic times the Chortis block has been placed adjacent to the southern part of the North American Cordillera (Sedlock et al., 1983; and within the 38

Pacific ocean (MacDonald, 1976; Vachard et al., 2000; Giunta et al., 2002, 2006; Keppie and Morn-Zenteno, 2004), as an autochthonous microplate (Dillon and Vedder, 1973), or simply ignored (Montgomery et al., 1994). Because the geologic history of the Chorts block extends to the Mesoproterozoic (Manton 1996; Nelson et al., 1997) and many authors have used regional stratigraphic correlations with Precambrian to Mesozoic terranes in southern Mexico (see Figure 9), it is convenient to discuss its past positions in these three major stages: Pre-Pangean, Pangean and postPangean.

8.1 Pre-Pangean Unfortunately, the paucity of stratigraphically proven pre-Mesozoic rocks and precise paleomagnetic and age data for well described Mesozoic and pre-Mesozoic basement rocks in the Chorts block severely limit inferences about its paleogeographic positions before the assembly of Pangea. The Mesoproterozoic (1,075 Ma) gneisses briefly described by Manton (1996), may have counterparts in the Oaxaquia superterrane of southern and eastern Mexico (Ortega-Gutirrez et al., 1995), which at southern Mexico it is composed of ca. 990-1,150 Ma granulite facies banded ortho and paragneisses intruded by pre- to synkinematic anorthositic complexes (Solari et al., 2003; Keppie et al., 2003). Accreted and autochthonous belts with Grenvillian gneisses along northern and western Amazonia, also exist in northwestern and west central South America (Colombia, Ecuador, and Per) forming the cratonic margin of Amazonia (Kroonemberg, 1982; Sadowski and Betancourt, 1996; Restrepo-Pace et al., 1997; Loewy et al., 2004), and Grenvillian granitoids of Laurentian affinity intruded into greenschist to amphibolite facies formations are common in northwestern Mexico and 39

southwestern U.S.A. (e.g. Anderson et al., 1979; Condie et al., 1992, Iriondo et al., 2004). These areas, that once formed part of the supercontinent Rodinia, may be considered as other possible paleogeographic connections for the Grenvillian units of the Chorts block exposed in Honduras. Current models analyzing the evolution of the pre-Mesozoic oceans of the pre-Atlantic paleogeographic domain (i.e. Murphy et al., 2006) locate the Chorts block by the end of the Proterozoic on the eastern side of the Iapetus Ocean adjacent to NW Amazonia and next to Oaxaquia and Yucatn blocks. Evidently, in the absence of precise data regarding all aspects of the pre-Mesozoic geology including the basement and cover units of the Central American region, the prePangean position of the Chorts block cannot be constrained by geologic correlations, and any pre-Mesozoic paleogeographic model linking the Chorts block with any of those areas on these bases should be considered with extreme caution. Nonetheless, considering the apparent absence of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks in the cover of the crystalline basement in the Chorts block, precise connections for this time with southwestern Mexico and the Maya blocks, which contain a thick blanket of late Paleozoic marine and continental fossiliferous units resting on crystalline basement rocks, cannot be established. 8.2 Pangean The final accretion of Pangea in the Mesoamerican region occurred in latest Paleozoic times, involving collision of the southern margin of Laurentia onto the northern leading edge of Gondwana, amalgamating major continental areas such as Oaxaquia, Yucatn, Florida, and possibly the Chorts block. A continental collision of this magnitude imprinted a strong sedimentological and tectonothermal record in the local geology of the Oaxaquia and Maya blocks, represented by thick sedimentary prisms, massive 40

batholiths, and tectonothermal events of late Paleozoic to earliest Mesozoic age. On the other hand, the Chorts block does not show a similar geologic history, which may be explained by two possible scenarios: (i) that orogenic rocks of late Paleozoic age exist in the block but are not exposed, or have not been dated nor discovered; for example, the high-grade metamorphic rocks of Las Ovejas Complex and San Diego Phyllite intruded by Middle Jurassic plutons may be of Paleozoic age and thus form an integral part of the Chorts block; (ii) that the Chorts block arrived at its present position in Mesozoic or Cenozoic times traveling from exposed cratonic masses facing the Pacific Ocean, which were not affected by the terminal Pangean collisional orogenic fronts. This latter possibility would preclude the Chorts block from being part of the suture zone between Gondwana and Laurentia that formed Pangea (Ortega-Gutirrez, et al., 1995; Grajales-Nishimura et al., 1999; Elas-Herrera and Ortega-Gutirrez, 2002). On the other hand, if confirmed, the Mississippian age of intense deformation and highgrade metamorphism of the Chuacs Complex measured at El Chol (Ortega-Gutirrez et al., 2004) would imply collisional orogenic activity and terrane accretion associated with the integration of Pangea in the Chorts-Maya suture zone. However, the ambiguous tectonic setting of the Chuacs Complex as part of the Maya, Chorts or other blocks requires further studies to evaluate its role in the context of AlleghenianVariscan tectonism and formation of Pangea in this region. 8.3. Post-Pangean The position of the Chorts block during Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times, although better constrained by stratigraphic successions (see Figure 9), is still controversial; some Jurassic plate tectonic models place it outboard in the Pacific (e.g. Giunta et al., 2006), whereas most other models show the entire block attached to southern Mexico 41

until the Jurassic (e.g. Anderson and Schmidt, 1983, Keppie, 2004), or remaining fixed there until the Eocene (e.g. Pindell and Dewey, 1982; Gose, 1985; Ross and Scotese, 1988; Pindell and Barret, 1990; Meshede and Frish, 1998; Kerr et al., 1999; Harlow et al., 2004; Pindell, 2006). More elaborate models (Rogers, 2003) include an Early Cretaceous rifting event of the Chorts block off southern Mexico and its orogenic collision in the Albian in order to explain certain Cretaceous stratigraphic and tectonic events that southern Mexico and the Chorts block seem to share. The ubiquitous presence of Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous marine and continental facies containing similar taxa of ammonites and plants that extend from southern Mexico to Nicaragua, Cuba (Figure 9), and the northwestern South American Andes (Ritchie and Finch 1985; Azema et al., 1985; Westerman et al., 1992; Rodrguez, 1995, Viland, 1996) suggests close paleogerographic connections at this time. Moreover, the subsequent Cretaceous stratigraphic succession is similar across the entire Central America area and southern Mexico (see Figure 3), and composed of Early to middle Cretaceous massive carbonates followed by Late Cretaceous terrigenous sedimentary rocks of marine as well as continental and volcanic origin. This similarity of sedimentary, volcanic, and faunal facies for the middle and late Mesozoic stratigraphic record of Mesoamerican terranes, and also for some of the Andean terranes in northwestern South America, constitutes a fundamental geologic framework that constrains relative displacements between terranes to at most a few hundred kilometers since the Jurassic. A little known but intriguing correlation model between Nuclear Central America and southern Mexico (de Cserna, 1990) was based upon similarities in the nature and age of mineral deposits along the Cordilleran margins of those regions, implying close connections of both blocks during the Mesozoic. 42

The comparative analysis of the Cretaceous and Eocene-Miocene stratigraphy of Chorts block and southern Mxico blocks is thus germane for the paleogeographic reconstruction and timing of the latest movements of these blocks. Mills (1998) also proposed a close Cretaceous connection between southern Mexico and the Chorts block based on structural, stratigraphic, and sedimentological correlations between the Early Cretaceous Morelos Formation of southern Mexico, and deformed equivalent Cretaceous carbonates of the Atima Formation in northern Honduras. However, the units underlying the Morelos Formation in Mexico, namely the Chapolapa volcanosedimentary formation and the polymetamorphic Acatln Complex, are different in age (Early Cretaceous and Ordovician-Permian respectively), and their lithologies are vastly different than the rocks shown by Mills (1998) beneath the Yojoa Group of Honduras (Agua Fra Formation of Middle Jurassic age, and Las Ovejas Complex of unknown age). Therefore, the direct continuity between Chorts and southern Mexico blocks during the Cretaceous is not clear. The thick (up to 3,000 m) Subinal Formation of Eocene-Miocene? of central Guatemala (Hirshman, 1963; Donnelly et al., 1990, p. 52-53) is virtually restricted to the Motagua valley. Its sediments include serpentinite and blueschist pebbles, indicating post- Cretaceous tectonic disturbances and uplift along the fault that may be related to displacements of the Chorts block in the Paleogene. Similar, but somewhat older (Paleocene-Eocene) thick continental red beds in southern Mexico are well represented in the Balsas Formation (Fries, 1960). The younger age of the Subinal Formation could be explained by a southeasterly migrating depocenter associated with the alleged displacement of the Chorts block off Mexico during the Cenozoic. However, a fatal argument against all models depicting the Chorts block adjacent to southwestern Mexico during the Paleogene may be that the 43

Caribbean ophiolitic nappes were emplaced in the Late Cretaceous onto both the Maya and Chorts blocks, implying juxtaposition of the two blocks by that time (e.g. Pindell, 1985; Mauffret et al., 2001; Keppie, 2004). Another fatal argument is the presence of an undeformed Cretaceous to Holocene sedimentary basin in the Gulf of Tehuantepec that straddles the Motagua fault zone (Keppie and Morn-Zenteno, 2005). Other similar models depict the extinction of El Tambor basin (proto-Caribbean sea) and compressional orogeny by late Campanian time at the southern edge of the Maya block, but caused by collision of the Greater Antilles arc and the Caribbean oceanic plateau migrating eastward from the Pacific (Stockhert et al., 1995; Bralower and IturraldeVinent, 1997; Hutson et al., 1998; Kerr and Tarney, 2005). However, as proposed by Harlow et al. (2004) and supported by detailed structural analysis (Francis, 2005), the Chorts block may have traveled more than a thousand kilometers between 120 and 80 Ma ago along the paleo-Motagua fault, with their southern ophiolitic slabs emplaced during the Aptian collision with southern Mexico, to clash again in the Maastrichtian against the southern margin of the Maya block, closing a segment of the Caribbean ocean and producing the northern ophiolitic nappes.

The present position of the Chorts block has generally been linked to the tectonic history of the Motagua and Polochic fault zones that have moved since the Paleogene, as the Cayman Trough was formed (McBirney and Bass, 1969). Current models link the two active faults to the early Cenozoic opening of the Cayman Trough in the Caribbean and the Middle America trench in the Pacific, thereby restoring a minimum of 1,100 km of sinistral movement of the Chorts and thus placing it adjacent to
A

southwestern Mexico in the Eocene. However, while it is evident that the Motagua and

44

Polochic faults are still moving, the newly defined Baja Verapaz shear zone that outlines the northern limit of the Chuacs Complex (Jacalteco terrane) appears to be inactive. If by Cretaceous times this terrane had been amalgamated with the Maya block, during the Cenozoic it probably moved no more than about 200 kilometers to its present position along the Baja Verapaz transpressional and Polochic-Motagua left lateral structures. Evidently, and as thoroughly discussed by James (2006), the Cretaceous location of the Chorts block near its present position would make it impossible for the Caribbean plate to have a Pacific origin. The few paleomagnetic data available from the rigid blocks, Maya (see Steiner, 2006 for a recent synthesis), and Chorts (Gose, 1985) unfortunately have not been conclusive, although for the latter block the results suggest latitudinal displacements of up to 1,500 km, and counterclockwise rotations up to 60 consistent with a past position in front of southern Mexico. In conclusion, models that propose the emplacement of the Chorts block near its actual position by the end of the Paleogene would be more in accord with left lateral transpressional orogenic interactions of the Maya and Chorts blocks in EoceneHolocene times associated with activity of the Cayman Trough, but those that advocate a Cretaceous arrival are more consistent with geologic studies produced at the southern edge of the Maya block. In this regard, it should be reckoned that the Chuacs Complex, located between the Maya and Chorts blocks, was affected by very highpressure metamorphism and covered by far-travelled ophiolitic nappes of El Tambor Group during the Late Cretaceous, arguing for some sort of full continental collision rather than the oblique interaction of the Maya margin with passing Caribbean arcs.

45

As a inevitable concluding remark it should be mentioned again that the virtually unknown nature of the pre-Mesozoic Chorts block basement, and the apparent absence of Paleozoic supracrustal units south of the Baja Verapaz fault, seriously hamper the Precambrian and Paleozoic paleogeographic reconstructions of the area in relation the adjacent continents. Younger paleogeographic scenarios may be easier to develop, however, but they should be based on close geologic comparisons between the known Mesozoic and Cenozoic stratigraphic units of southern Mexico and Central America, and their possible counterparts of the Circum-Caribbean region, particularly including large segments of Andean terranes in northwestern South America.

10. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper benefited from funds from the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico (PAPIIT-DGAPA Grant IN100002 to LAS), and from internal funds of the Instituto de Geologa, UNAM. We want to thank the CUNOR, Universidad de San Carlos, for logistical support during fieldwork. Diego Aparicio at UNAM, Instituto de Geologa, made more than 300 thin sections for petrography and microprobe of selected studied areas in Central America, which were used to elucidate petrographic conditions of some of the outcrops.

REFERENCES Anderson, T. H., 1968, Pre-Pennsylvanian and later displacements along ChixoyPolochic fault trace, northwestern Guatemala: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs Special Paper 121, p. 6, 46

Anderson, T. H., Burkart, B., Clemons, R.E., Bohnenberger, O.H., and Blount, D.N., 1973, Geology of the Western Altos Cuchumatanes, Northwestern Guatemala: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 84, p. 805-826. Anderson, T. H., et al., 1979, Geological Society of America, Field trip to Guidebook Cordilleran Section Anderson, T. H., and Schmidt, V.A., 1983, The evolution of Middle America and the Gulf of Mexico-Caribbean Sea region during Mesozoic time: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 94, p. 941-966. Anderson, T. H., Erdlac, R. J., and Sandstrom, M. A., 1985, Late Cretaceous allochthons and post-Cretaceous strike-slip displacement along the Cuilco-ChixoyPolochic fault, Guatemala: Tectonics, v. 5, p. 453-475. Av-Lallemant, H. G., and Gordon, M., 1999, Deformation history of Roatn Island: Implications for the origin of the Tela Basin: in Mann, P., (ed.), Sedimentary Basins of the World 4, Amsterdam, Elsevier, p. 197-218. Azema, J., Biju-Duval, B., Bizon, J. J., Carfantan, J. C., Mascle, A., and Tardy, M., 1985, Le Honduras (Amrique Centrale Nucleare) et le bloc dOaxaca (Sud du Mexique): deux ensambles comparables du continent Nord-Americain spars par le jeu dcrochant snestre des failles du systme Polochic-Motagua: Godynamique des Carabes Symposium, Paris 1985, Editions Technp 27, Paris, France, p. 427-438. Bateson, J. H., 1972, New interpretation of geology of Maya Mountains, British Honduras: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 56, 956-963. Bateson, J. H., and Hall, I. H. S., 1977, The geology of the Maya Mountains, Belize: Inst. Geol. Sci., Nat. Environ. Res. Council, London, Overseas Memoir 3, 45 p. 47

Baumgartner, P.O., Flores, K., and Denyer, P., 2004, Discovery of ocean remnants in the Siuna area (NE-Nicaragua): 2nd Swiss Geoscience Meeting, Lausanne, p. 1. Beccaluva, L., Bellia. S., Coltorti, M., Dengo, G., Giunta, G., Mendez, J., Romero, J., and Siena, F., 1995, The northwestern border of the Caribbean Plate in Guatemala: new geological and petrological data on the Motagua ophiolitic belt: Ophioliti, v. 20, p. 1-15. Bohnemberger, O. H., 1966, Nomenclatura de las Capas Santa Rosa en Guatemala: Publicaciones Geolgicas del ICAITI (Guatemala), v. 1, p. 47-51. Bonis, S. B., 1967, Geological reconnaissance of the Alta Verapaz fold belt Guatemala: Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University, Ph. D., thesis (unpublished), 104 p. Bosc, E., 1971, Geology of the San Agustn Acasaguastln quadrangle and northeastern part of El Progreso quadrangle: Rice University, Houston, Texas, Ph. D. Thesis (unpublished), 131 p. Bralower, T. J., and Iturralde-Vinent, M. A., 1997, Micropaleontological dating of the collision between the North American plate and the Greater Antilles arc in western Cuba: Palaios, v. 12, p. 133-150. Bullard, E. C., Everett, J., and Smith, A. G., 1965, A symposium on continental drift: Royal Soc. London Philosophical Transactions series A, v. 258, p. 41-51. Burkart, B., 1978, Offset across the Polochic fault of Guatemala and Chiapas: Geology, v. 6., p. 328-332. Burkart, B., 1983, Neogene North American-Caribbean plate boundary across northern Central America: Offset along the Polochic fault: Tectonophysics, v. 99, p. 251270.

48

Burkart, B., and Self, 1985, Extension and rotation of crustal blocks in northern Central America and effect on the volcanic arc: Geology, v. 3, p. 22-26. Burkart, B., Deaton, B. C., Dengo, C., and Moreno, G., 1987, Tectonic wedges and offset Laramide structures along the Polochic fault of Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico: Reaffirmation of large Neogene displacements: Tectonics, v. 6, p. 411422. Butterlin, J., 1977, Gologie structurale de la rgion des Caraibes (Mexique-Amrique Centrale-Antilles-Cordillre Caraibe): Masson, Paris, New York, 259 p. Cceres, D., Monterroso, D., and Tavakoli, B., 2005, Crustal deformation in northern Central America: Tectonophysics, v. 404, p. 119-131. Carfantan, J. C., 1985, Du systeme cordillerain Nord-Americain au domaine Caraibe: Memoire de these de Docteur dEtat, Universit de Savoie a Chambry, 558 p. Carpenter, R. H., 1954, Geology and ore deposits of the Rosario Mining District and the San Juancito Mountains, Honduras, Central America: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 65, p. 23-38. Case, J. E., Holcombe, T. L., and Martin, R G., 1984, Map of geological provinces in the Caribbean region, Geological Society of America Memoir 162, p. 1-30, Map 4. Clemons, R. E., and Long, L.E., 1971, Petrologic and Rb-Sr isotopic study of the Chiquimula pluton, southeastern Guatemala: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 82, p. 2729-2740. Clemons, R. E., Anderson, T. H., Bohnemberger, O. H., and Burkart, B., 1974, Stratigraphic nomenclature of recognized Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks of western Guatemala: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 58, p. 313-320. 49

Condie, K. C., 1992, Proterozoic terranes and continental accretion in southwestern North America, in K.C. Condie (ed.), Proterozoic crustal evolution, New York, Elsevier, p. 447-480. Coney, P. J., Jones, D. L., and Monger, J. W. H., 1980, Cordilleran suspect terranes: Nature, v. 288, p. 329-333. Damon, P., in Salas, 1975, Carta y Provincias metalogenticas de la Repblica Mexicana, Consejo de Recursos Minerales, Publicacin 216, p. 220-221. Deaton, B. C., and Burkart, B., 1984, Time of sinistral slip along the Polochic fault of Guatemala: Tectonophysics, v. 102, p. 297-313. De Cserna, Z., 1958, Notes on the tectonics of southern Mexico, in Habitat of Oil; Tulsa, Oklahoma: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, p. 523-532. De Cserna, Z., 1990, Geotectonic framework of Mexican and Central American mineral deposits: The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Pacific Rim Congress 90, Proceedings, v. II, p. 39-52. Del Giudice, P., 1960, Apuntes sobre la geologa del Departamento de Nueva Segovia: Boletn del Servicio Geolgico de Nicaragua, v. 4, p. 19-37. DeMets, C., Jansma, P. E., Mattioli, G. S., Dixon, T. H., Farina, F., Bilhamn, R., Calais, E., and Mann, P., 2000, GPS geodetic constraints on Caribbean-North American plate motion: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 27, p . 437-440. Dengo, G., 1969, Problems of tectonic relations between Central America and the Caribbean: Transactions of the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, v. 19. p. 311-320. Dengo, G., 1972, Review of Caribbean serpentinites and their tectonic implications: Geological Society of America Memoir, 132, p. 303-312. 50

Dengo, G., 1985, Mid America; tectonic setting fro the Pacific margin from southern Mexico to northwestern Colombia, in Nairn, A.E.M., and Stehli, F.G., eds., The Ocean Basins and Margins, v. 7, New York, Plenum Press, p. 123-180. Dickinson and Lawton, 2001 Dillon, W. P., and Vedder, J. G., 1973, Structure and development of the continental margin of British Honduras: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 64, p. 27132732. Dixon, C.G., 1955, Geology of southern British Honduras, with notes on adjacent areas: Belize Government Printer, 85 p. Donnelly, T. W., Horne, G. S., Finch, R. C., and Lpez-Ramos, E., 1990, Northern Central America; the Maya and Chorts blocks. In Dengo, G. and Case, J.E., (Eds.), The Caribbean Region: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America, The Geology of North America, v. 11, p. 37-76. Drobe, J., and Cann, R. M., 2001, Cu-Au skarn mineralization, Minas de Oro District, Honduras, Central America: Exploration and Mining Geology, v. 9, p. 51-63. Echvarri-Prez, A., and Rueda-Gaxiola, J., 1962, Estudio geolgico econmico de los yacimientos de tungsteno y molibdeno de Macuelizo, Nueva Segovia: Boletn del Servicio Geolgico de Nicaragua, v. 6, p. 23-43. Emmet, P. A., 1988, Mapa Geolgico de Honduras, Hoja de Guanaja, escala 1:50,000: Instituto Geogrfico Nacional, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Ernst, W. G., Mosenfelder, J. L., Leech, M. L., and Liu, J., 1998, H2O recycling during continental collision: Phase equilibrium and kinetic considerations, in Hacker, B.R., and Liou, J. G., (eds.): When continents collide, Chapter 11, p. 275-295.

51

Fakundiny, R. H., 1970, Geology of the El Rosario quadrangle, Honduras, Central America, Ph. D. thesis (unpublished), University of Texas, Austin, 234 p. Fakundiny, R. H., and Everett, J. R., 1976, Re-examination of Mesozoic stratigraphy of El Rosario and Comayagua quadrangles, Central Honduras: Publicaciones Geolgicas ICAITI, v. 5, p. 5-17. Finch, R. C., and Ritchie, A. W., 1991, The Guayape fault system, Honduras, Central America: Journal of South American Earth Sciences, v. 4, p. 43-60. Francis, A.H., 2005, Deformation history of the Maya and Chorts blocks: insight to the evolution of the Motagua fault zone, Guatemala: Houston, Texas, Master thesis, Rice University, 89 p. Freeland, G., and Dietz, R., 1971, Plate tectonic evolution of the Caribbean-Gulf of Mexico region: Nature, v. 232, p. 2-23. Fries, C. Jr., 1960, Geologa del Estado de Morelos y de partes adyacentes de Mexico y Guerrero, regin central meridional de Mexico: Univ. Nal. Autn. Mex., Instituto de Geologa., Boletn, v. 60, 236 p. Fourcade, E., Mndez, J., Azma, J., Bellier, J. P., Cros, P., Michaud, F., Carballo, M., and Villagrn, J. C., 1994, Dating of the settling and drowning of the carbonate platform, and the over thrusting of the ophiolites on the Maya Block during the Mesozoic (Guatemala): Newsletter on Stratigraphy, v. 30., p. 33-43. Giunta, G., Beccaluva, L., Coltorti, M., Cutrupia, D., Dengo, C., Harlow, G. F., Mota, B., Padoa, E., Rosenfeld, J., and Siena, F., 2002, The Motagua suture zone in Guatemala. Field trip guide-book of the IGCP 433 Workshop and 2nd Italian-Latin American Geological Meeting In memory of Gabriel Dengo: Ofioliti, v. 27, p. 4772. 52

Giunta, G., Beccaluva, L., and Siena, F., 2006, Caribbean plate margin evolution: constraints and current problems: Geologica Acta, v. 4, p. 265-277. Gomberg, D. N., Banks, P. O., and McBirney, A. R., 1968, Guatemala: preliminary zircon ages from Central Cordillera: Science, v. 162, p. 121-122. Gordon, M. B., 1993, Revised Jurassic and Early Cretaceous (pre-Yojoa Group) stratigraphy of the Chorts block: Paleogeographic and tectonic implications: GCSSEPM Foundation, 13th Annual Research Conference Proceedings, p. 143154. Gordon, M. B., and Muehlberger, W.R., 1994, Rotation of the Chorts block causes dextral slip on the Guayape fault: Tectonics, v. 13, p. 858-872. Gose, W. A., 1985, Paleomagnetic results from Honduras and their bearing on Caribbean tectonics: Tectonics, v. 4, p. 565-585. Gutirrez-Gil, R., 1956, Bosquejo geolgico del Estado de Chiapas: XX International Geologic Congress, Mxico D.F., Excursin C-15, Geologa del Mesozoico y Estratigrafa Prmica del Estado de Chiapas, p. 9-32. Guzmn-Speziale, M., Pennington, W. D., Matumoto, T., 1989, The triple junction of the North America, Cocos, and Caribbean plates: seismicity and tectonics: Tectonics, v. 8, p. 981-997. Guzmn-Speziale, M., 2000, The North America-Caribbean plate boundary west of the Motagua-Polochic fault system: a fault jog in southeastern Mexico: Journal of South American Earth Sciences, v. 13, p. 459-468. Hall, I. H. S., and Bateson, J. H., 1972, Late Paleozoic lavas in Maya Mountains, British Honduras, and their possible regional significance: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 56, p. 950-983. 53

Harlow, G.E., Hemming, S.R., Av-Lallemant, H.G., Sisson, V.B., and Sorensen, S.S., 2004, Two high-pressure-low temperature serpentinite-matrix mlange belts, Motagua fault zone, Guatemala: A record of Aptian and Maastrichtian collisions: Geology, v. 32, p. 17-20. Hernndez-Garca, R., 1973, Paleogeografa del Paleozoico de Chiapas, Mexico: Boletn de la Asociacin Mexicana de Gelogos Petoleros, v. 25, p. 77-134. Heubeck, C., and Mann, P., 1991, Geologic evolution of plate cinematic models for the North American plate boundary zone: Tectonophysics, v. 191, p. 1-26. Hiller, R., Weber, B., Hecht, L., Ortega-Gutirrez, F., Schaaf, P., y Lpez-Martnez, M., 2004, The Sepultura unit a medium to high grade metasedimentary sequence in the Chiapas massif: IV Reunin Nacional de Ciencias de la Tierra, Quertaro (Mexico), Libro de Resmenes, p. 200-201. Hirshman, T. S., 1963, Reconnaissance geology and stratigraphy of the Subinal Formation (Tertiary) of the El Progreso area, Guatemala, C.A.: Master thesis (unpublished), Bloomington, Indiana University, 66 p. Horne, G. S., Clark, G. S., and Pushkar, P., 1976, Pre-Cretaceous rocks of northwestern Honduras: basement terrane in Sierra de Omoa: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 58, p. 566-583. Howell. D. G., 1985, (ed.) Tectonostratigraphic terranes of the circum-Pacific region; Circum-Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources, Earth Science Series, vol. Houston, TX, 581 p. Hutson F., Mann, P., and Renne, P., 1998, 40Ar/39Ar dating of single muscovite grains in Jurassic siliciclastic rocks (San Cayetano Formation): Constraints on the paleoposition of western Cuba: Geology, v. 26, p. 83-86. 54

International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification (ISSC), 1994, International Stratigraphic Guide -A guide to stratigraphic classification, terminology, and procedure (Amos Salvador, ed.), 2nd edition: The International Union of Geological Sciences and The Geological Society of America, Inc., 214 p. Iriondo, A., Premo, W. R., Martnez-Torres, L. M., Budahan, J R., Atkinson, Jr., W. W., Siems, D. F., and Guars-Gonzlez, B., 2004, Isotopic, geochemical and temporal characterization of Proterozoic basement rocks in the Quitovac region, northwestern Sonora, Mexico: implications for the reconstruction of the southwestern margin of Laurentia: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 116, p. 154-170 James, K. H., 2006, Arguments for and against the Pacific origin of the Caribbean Plate; discussion, finding for an inter-American origin: Geologica Acta, v. 4, p. 279-302. Jones, D.L., Howell, D.G., Coney, P.J., and Monger, J.W.H., 1983, Recognition, character, and analysis of tectonostratigraphic terranes in western North America: in M. Hashimoto and S. Uyeda (eds.), Accretion Tectonics in the Circum-Pacific Regions. Tokyo, Terra Scientific Publishing Company, p. 21-35. Kanamori, H., and Stewart, G. S., 1978, Seismological aspects of the Guatemala earthquake of February 4, 1976: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 83, p. 34273434. Karig, D. E., Cardwell, R.K., Moore, G. F., and Moore, D. G., Late Cenozoic subduction and continental margin truncation along the northern Middle America Trench: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 89, p. 265Keppie, J. D., 1977, Plate tectonic interpretation of Paleozoic world maps: Nova Scotia Dept. of Mines, Paper 77-3, 30 p. 55

Keppie, J.D., 2004, Mexican terranes revisited: a 1.3 billion year odyssey. International Geology Review, v. 46, p. 765-794. Keppie, J. D., and Ramos, V. A., 1999, Odyssey of terranes in the Iapetus and Rheic oceans during the Paleozoic: in V.A., Ramos, and J.D. Keppie, eds., LaurentiaGondwana connections before Pangea, Geological Society of America Special Paper, 336, p. 267-276. Keppie, J.D., Dostal, J., Cameron, K.L., Solari, L.A., Ortega-Gutirrez, F., and Lopez, R. 2003. Geochronology and geochemistry of Grenvillian igneous suites in the northern Oaxacan Complex, southern Mxico: tectonic implications. Precambrian Research, v. 120 (2003), p. 365-389. Keppie, J. D., and Morn-Zenteno, D. J., 2004, Tectonic implications of alternative Cenozoic reconstructions for southern Mexico and the Chorts block: International Geology Review, v. 47, p. 473-491. Kerr, A. C., Iturralde-Vinent, M. A., Saunders, A. D., Babbs, T. L., and Tarney, J., 1999, New plate tectonic model of the Caribbean: Implications from a geochemical reconnaissance of Cuban Mesozoic volcanic rocks: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 111, p. 1581-1599. Kesler, S. E., Josey, W. L., and Collins, W. M., 1970, Basement rocks of western nuclear Central America: The western Chuacs Group, Guatemala: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 81, p. 3307-3322. Kesler, S. E., Bateson H., Josey, W. l., Cramer, G. H., and Simmons, W. A., 1971, Mesoscopic structural homogeneity of Maya Series and Macal Series, Mountain Pine Ridge, British Honduras American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 55, p. 97-103. 56

Krogh, T. E., Kamo, S. L., Sharpton, V. L., Marin, L. E., and Hildebrand, A. L., 1993, UPb ages of single shocked zircons linking distal K/T ejecta to the Chicxulub crater: Science, v. 366, p. 731-734. Kroonemberg, S., 1982, Grenvillian granulite belt in the Colombian Andes and its relations to the Guiana Shield: Geologie Mijnbouw, v. 61, p. 325-333. Lapierre, H., et al., (with fourteen coauthors), 2000, Multiple plume events in the genesis of the peri-Caribbean Cretaceous oceanic plateau province: Journal of Geophysical Research, No. B4, v. 105, p. 8403-8421. Lawrence, 1975, Petrology and structural geology of the Sanarate-El Progreso area, Guatemala, Ph. D. thesis (unpublished), Binghamton, State University of New York, 255 p. Liu, J., Bohlen, S.R., and Ernst, W.G., 1996, Stability of hydrous phases in subducting oceanic crust: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 143, p. 161-171. Loewy. S. L., Connelly, J.N., and Dalziel, I.W.D., 2004, An orphaned basement block: The Arequipa-Antofalla basement of the central margin of South America: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 116, p, 171-187. Maldonado-Koerdell, M., 1953, Plantas del Rtico-Lisico y otros fsiles trisicos de Honduras, C.A., Ciencia (Mxico), v. 11-12, p. 294-296. Malfait, B. T., and Dinkelman, M. G., 1972, Circum-Caribbean tectonic and igneous activity and the evolution of the Caribbean Plate: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 83, p. 251-272. Mann, P., and Burke, K., 1988, Cenozoic rift formation in the northern Caribbean: Geology, v. 12, p. 732-736.

57

Manton, W. I., 1987, Tectonic interpretation of the morphology of Honduras: Tectonics, v. 5, p. 633-651. Manton. W. I., 1996, The Grenville of Honduras: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, v. 28, p. A-493. Manton, W. I., and Manton, R. S., 1999, The southern flank of the Tela Basin, Republic of Honduras: in Mann, P. (ed.), Caribbean Basins, Sedimentary Basins of the World, 4, Amsterdam, Elsevier, p. 219-216. Mauffret, A., Leroy, S., Vlla, J-M., Hallot, E., de Lpinay, D.M., and Duncan, R.A., 2001, Prolonged magmatic and tectonic development of the Caribbean igneous province revealed by a diving submersible survey: Marine Geophysical Researches, v. 22, p. 17-45. McBirney, W. 1963, Geology of a part of a part of the Central Guatemalan Cordillera: University of California Publications in Geological Sciences, v. 38, p. 177-242. McBirney, A. R., and Bass, M. N., 1969, Structural relations of pre-Mesozoic rocks of northern Central America: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Memoir 11, p. 269-280. Meshede, M., and Frisch, W., 1988, A plate-tectonic model for the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic history of the Caribbean plate: Tectonophysics, v. 296, p. 269-291. Mills, R. A., 1998, Carbonate detritus and mylonite zones in Guerrero, Mexico and northern Honduras: new evidence for detachment of the Chorts block from southern Mexico: Journal of South American Earth Sciences, v. 11, p. 291-307. Montgomery, H., Pessagno, A., Lewis, J.F., and Schellekens, J., 1994, Paleogeography of Jurassic fragments in the Caribbean: Tectonics, v., 13, p. 725-732.

58

Muehelberger, W. R., and Ritchie, A. W., 1975, Caribbean-Americas plate boundary in Guatemala and southern Mexico as seen on Skylab IV orbital photography: Geology, v. 3, p. 629-632. Muehlberger, W., 1976, The Honduras depression: Public. Geol. ICAITI (Guatemala), No. 5, p. 43-51. Murphy, J.B., Gutirrez-Alonso, G., Nance, D.R, Fernndez-Surez, J., Keppie, J.D., Quesada, C., Strachan, R.A., and Dostal, J., Origin of the Rheic Ocean: Rifting along a Neoproterozoic suture?: 2006: Geology, v. 34, p. 325-328. Nelson, B.K., Herrmann, U.R., Gordon, M.B., and Ratsbacher, L., 1997, Sm-Nd and UPb evidence for Proterozoic crust for in the Chorts block, Central America: comparison with the crustal history of southern Mexico: Terra Nova, v. 9, Abstract Supplement, No. 1, p. 496. Newcomb, W. E., 1978, Retrograde cataclastic gneiss north of Motagua fault zone, east-central Guatemala: Geologie en Mijnbouw, v. 57, p. 271-276. Ortega-Gutirrez, F., Ruiz, J., and Centeno-Garca, E., 1995, Oaxaquia, a Proterozoic microcontinent accreted to North America during the late Paleozoic: Geology, v. 23, p. 1127-1130. Ortega-Gutirrez, F., Solari, L. A., Sol-Vias, J., Martens, U., Gmez-Tuena, A., C., Morn-Ical, S., Reyes-Salas, M., and Ortega-Obregn, C., 2004, Polyphase, hightemperature eclogite-facies metamorphism in the Chuacs Complex, Central Guatemala: petrology, geochronology, and tectonic implications: International Geology Review, v. 46, p. 445-470.

59

Ortega-Obregn, C., Solari, L. A., Ortega-Gutirrez, F., Sol-Vias, J., y Gmez-Tuena, A., 2004, Caracterizacin estructural, petrolgica y geocronolgica de la zona de cizalla Baja Verapaz, Guatemala: IV Reunin Nacional de Ciencias de la Tierra, Quertaro (Mxico), Libro de Resmenes, p. 204. Ortega-Obregn, C., 2005, Caracterizacin estructural petrolgica y geoqumica de la zona de cizalla Baja Verapaz, Guatemala, Ms. thesis (unpublished), Univ. Nal. Autn. Mxico, 99 p. Pantoja-Alor, J., Fries, C., Rincn-Orta, C., Silver. L. T., and Solorio-Mungua, J., 1974, Contribucin a la geocronologa del Estado de Chiapas: Boletin de la Asociacin Mexicana de Gelogos Petroleros, v 26, p. 205-223. Paz-Rivera, N.,1962, Reconocimiento geolgico en la cuenca hidrogrfica de los ros Coco y Bocay: Boletn del Servicio Geolgico de Nicaragua, v. 6, p. 5-22. Pindell, J. L., and Dewey, J. F., 1982, Permo-Triassic reconstruction of western Pangea, and the evolution of the Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean regions: Tectonics, v. 1, p. 179-211. Pindell, J. L., 1985, Alleghanian reconstruction and subsequent evolution of the Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas, and Proto-Caribbean: Tectonics, v. 4, p. 1-39. Pindell, J. L., Cande, S.C. III, Pitman, W. C., Rowley, D.B., Dewey, J.F., Labrecque, J., and Haxby, W., 1988, A plate-cinematic framework for models of Caribbean evolution: Tectonophysics, v. 155, p. 121-138. Pindell, J. L., and Barret, S. F., 1990, Geologic evolution of the Caribbean region: A plate tectonic perspective. In, Dengo, G., and Case, J.E., (eds.), The Geology of North America, v. H, The Caribbean Region, Geological Society of America, p. 405-432. 60

Pindell, J. L., Kennan, L., Stanek, K. P., Maresch, W. V., and Draper, G., 2006, Foundations of Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean evolution: eight controversies resolved: Geologica Acta, v. 4, p. 303-341. Pieiro, R.F., and Romero, M. S., 1962, Reconocimiento geolgico minero de la porcin noroeste de la Repblica de Nicaragua: Bol. Serv. Geol. Nal. Nicaragua, v. 6, p. 50-91. Plafker, G. W., 1976, Tectonic aspects of the Guatemalan earthquake of 4 February 1976, Science, v.193, p. 1201-1208. Pushkar, P., 1968, Strontium isotope ratios in volcanic rocks of three island arcs areas: Journal of Geophysical Research., v. 73, p. 2701-2714. Restrepo-Pace, P. A., Ruiz, J., Gehrels, G., and Cosca, M., 1997, Geochronology and Nd isotopic data of Grenville-age rocks in the Colombian Andes: new constraints for Late Proterozoic-Early Paleozoic paleocontinental reconstructions of the Americas: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 150, p. 427-441. Ritchie, A. W., and Finch, R. C., 1985, Widespread Jurassic strata on the Chortis Block of the Caribbean plate: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 17, p. 700-701. Roberts, R.J., and Irving, E. M., 1957, Mineral Deposits of Central America, U.S. Geological Survey, Bull. 1034, 205 p. Rodrguez, 1995, Geologa Colombiana, v. 19, p. 165-172. Rogers, R. D., 2003, Jurassic-Recent tectonic and stratigraphic history of the Chorts block of Honduras and Nicaragua (northern Central America): Ph.D. thesis (unpublished), The University of Texas at Austin, 286 p.

61

Roper, P. J., 1978, Stratigraphy of the Chuacs Group on the south side of the Sierra de las Minas range, Guatemala: Geologie en Mijnbouw, v. 57, p. 309-313. Rosencrantz, E., and Sclater, J. G., 1986, Depth and age in the Cayman Trough: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 79, p. 133-144. Rosencrantz, E., Ross, M. I., and Sclater, J. G., 1988, Age and spreading history of the Cayman Trough as determined from depth, heat flow, and magnetic anomalies: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 93, p. 2141-2157. Rosenfeld, L., 1981, Geology of the western Sierra de Santa Cruz, Guatemala: Ph. D. Thesis, New York State University (unpublished), 313 p. Ross, M. I., and Scotese, C. R., 1988, A hierarchical tectonic model of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean region: Tectonophysics, v. 155, p. 139-168. Sadowski, G. R., and Betancourt, J.S., 1996, Mesoproterozoic tectonic correlations between eastern Laurentia and the western border of the Amazon craton: Precambrian Research, v. 76, p. 213-227. Sapper, K., 1937, Mittleamerika: Handb. Reg. Geol. Bd. 8, Heft. 29, Steinman and Wilckens, Heidelberg, Germany, 160 p. Schaaf, P., Morn-Zenteno, D. J., Hernndez-Bernal, M. S., Sols-Pichardo, G., Tolson, G., and Khler, H., 1995, Paleogene continental margin truncation in southwestern Mexico, geochronological evidence: Tectonics, v. 14, p. 1339-1350. Schaaf, P., Weber, B., Weis, P., Gro, A., Ortega-Gutirrez, F., and Khler, H., 2002, The Chiapas Massif (Mexico), revised: New geologic and isotopic data and basement characteristics: N. Jb., Geol. Palont. Abh., 225 (1), p. 1-23. Schwartz, D. P., 1976, Geology of the Zacapa Quadrangle and vicinity, Guatemala, Central America: Ph. D. thesis, State University New York, Binghamton, 191 p. 62

Schuchert, C., 1935, Historical geology of the Antillean-Caribbean region: J. Wiley & Sons, New York, 811 p. Simonson, B. M. 1981, Mapa Geolgico de Honduras, Hoja de El Porvenir, escala 1:50,000: Instituto Geogrfico Nacional, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Solari, L., Keppie, J.D., Ortega-Gutirrez, F., Cameron, K. L., Lopez, R., and Hames, W.E., 2002, 990 and 1100 Ma Grenvillian tectonothermal events in the northern Oaxacan Complex, southern Mexico: roots of an orogen: Tectonophysics, v. 365, p. 257-282. Steiner, M. B., and Walker, J.D.,1996, Late Silurian plutons in Yucatn: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 101/B8, p. 17727-17735. Steiner, M. B., 2006, Pangean reconstruction of the Yucatan block: its Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic geologic and tectonic history: Geological Society of America Special Paper 393, p. 457-480. Stckhert, B., Maresh, W.V., Brix, M., Kaiser, C., Toetz, A., Kluge, R., and LuederKrckhans, G., 1995, Crustal history of Margarita Island (Venezuela) in detail: Constraint on the Caribbean plate-tectonic scenario: Geology, v. 23, p. 787-790. Tovar-Corts, J., Weber, B., and Lpez-Martnez, M., 2005, Edad y cinemtica de milonitas en el rea de Pijijiapan, Chiapas: evidencia para el movimiento lateral entre el bloque Maya y Chortis: Unin Geofsica Mexicana, Boletn Informativo, Epoca II, GEOS, v. 25, p. 94. Vachard, D., and Fourcade, E., 1997, Foraminiferes et algues du Permien du Guatemala: Geobios, v. 30, p. 745-784.

63

Vachard, D., Flores de Dios. A., and Buitrn, B., 2004, Guadalupian and Lopigian (Middle and Late Permian deposits from Mexico and Guatemala, a review with new data : Geobios, v 37, p. 99-115. Van den Boom, G., 1972, Petrofazziele Gliederung des metamorphen Grundgebirges in der Sierra de Chuacs, Guatemala: Beiheffe Geol. Jahrb., v. 122, p. 5-49. Venable, M., 1994, A geological, tectonic, and metallogenic evaluation of the Siuna terrane (Nicaragua): Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona, 154 p. Viland, J., Henry, B., Calix, R., and Diaz, C., 1996, Late Jurassic deformation in Honduras: proposals for a revised regional stratigraphy: Journal of South American Earth Sciences, v. 9, p. 153-160. Wawrzyniec, T., Molina-Garza, R.S., Geissman. J., and Iriondo, A., 2005, A newly discovered, relic, transcurrent plate boundary the Tonal shear zone and paleomagnetic evaluation of the western Maya block, SW Mexico: Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, Abstracts with Programs, v. p. Weber, B., and Cameron, K. L., 2003, U-Pb zircon dating of metamorphic rocks from the Chiapas massif: evidence for Grenville crust and Late Permian orogeny in the southern Maya terrane: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 35 num. 4, p. 65. Weber, B., Schaaf, P., Premo, W.R., Iriondo, A., y Ortega-Gutirrez, F., 2004, New insights on the provenance of the southern Maya terrane and its implications on southern Mexico-South America connections: IV Reunin Nacional de Ciencias de la Tierra, Quertaro (Mexico), Libro de Resmenes, p. 200. Weber, B., Cameron, K. L., Osorio, M., Schaaf, P., 2005. A Late Permian tectonothermal event in Grenville crust of the Southern Maya terrane: U-Pb zircon 64

ages from the Chiapas massif, Southeastern Mxico: International Geology Review, v. 47, p. 509-529. Westerman, G. E. G., 1992. The Jurassic of the Circum-Pacific: Cambridge University Press, 676 p. Weyl, R., 1980, Geology of Central America, Second Edition, Gebrder Borntraeger, Berlin, 371 p. Whitaker, A., and 11 authors more, 1991, A guide to stratigraphical procedure: Journal of the Geological Society London, v. 148, p. 813-824. White, R. A., 1985, The Guatemalan earthquake of 1816 on the Chixoy-Polochic Fault: Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, v. 75, p. 455-473. Williams, M. D., 1975, Emplacement of Sierra Santa Cruz, eastern Guatemala: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 59, p. 1211-1216. Wilson, H. H., 1974, Cretaceous sedimentation and orogeny in nuclear Central America: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 58, p. 1348-1396. Zoppis, B. L., 1957, Estudio geolgico de la regin de Palacaguina y de su depsito de antimonio: Boletn del Servicio Geolgico de Nicaragua, v. 1, p. 29-34.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

Figure 1. Main geographic localities and major tectonic features of the Maya-Chorts continental region referred in the text. Figure 2. Panoramic views of the major physiographic units that characterize the tectonic boundary between the Chorts block to the south, and the Maya block to the north. a) Northern mountainous front (Sierra de Las Minas) of the Motagua fault zone. 65

b) Rugged interior of the Sierra de Chuacs. c) Northern front of the Sierra de Chuacs and the northern limit of the Chuacs Complex defined by the Baja Verapaz fault zone. d) Altos Cuchumatanes, an impressive plateau uplift of almost 4000 m at the southern edge the Maya block, facing the Polochic fault zone to the south.

Figure 3. Tectonostratigraphic correlation chart for the study area as discussed in this work.

Figure 4. a) High-Al metapelite of the Cacaguapa schist (Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua) a basement outcrop of the Chorts block. b). Las Ovejas Complex, Gualn area. c) Garnet amphibolites (meta-eclogite) of the Chuacs Complex interlayered with banded quartzofeldspathic high-pressure gneisses (Sierra de Las Minas). d) Retrograde, refolded gneisses of Chuacs Complex in tectonic contact with low-grade metasediments of unknown age (Rio Hondo). e) Typical outcrop of the low-grade arkosic psammite San Gabriel sequence, route Rabinal-Salam, near the town of San Miguel Chicaj. f) Weathered outcrop of the Rabinal granite about 3 km northwest of Rabinal city. g) Block of garnet amphibolite (metaeclogite?), Barillas town area, along the Amelco River, representing local outcrops of the Barillas metamorphic complex. h) Ophiolitic tectonites of El Tambor Group at the trace of the Motagua fault zone.

Figure 5. Detailed geologic map and cross section of the Baja Verapaz shear zone, as exposed between the cities of Rabinal and Salam (modified from Ortega-Obregn, 2005).

66

Figure 6. Correlation table for units of the late Paleozoic Maya block (modified from Clemons et al. (1973).

Figure 7. Tectonostratigraphic correlation chart for terranes located in southern Mexico and in the Maya-Chorts blocks.

Figure 8. Terrane subdivision as proposed by Rogers (2003) on the bases of Pb isotope and magnetometric geophysical data. Inset: Pb isotopes for selected tectonostratigraphic provinces of the Central America region (data from Rogers, 2003).

Figure 9. A) Schematic map of proposed terrane subdivision for the Chorts-Maya region, based on terrane analysis principles, namely, the presence of distinctive stratigraphic packages bounded by major faults. PF, Polochic fault; BVZ, Baja Verapaz fault; MFZ, Motagua fault; JchF, Jocotn-Chamelecn-La Ceiba fault; AF, Agun fault. B) Schematic tectonostratigraphic cross-section from the Maya to the Chorts block.

67

100

200 km YUCATAN PLATFORM

Paxban

North American Plate

Cd. Belize

18

MEXICO

Tuxtla Gutirrez

C BELIZE FO HIAP LD ASGUATEMALA BE - P INS LT ET TA UN N MO

YA MA

Caribbean Sea

YUCATAN BASIN

N T PE SPA IA CH

UGH N TRO sland A CAYM tn I Roa

Is Utila land

A LV I JA GR N SI BA
Chicomuselo

LD FO

LT BE

PAC IFIC BAS IN

Jocotn

Tegucigalpa

GF

S PA IA CH

16

volcano PA L. Atitln Quetzaltenango CIF Guatemala IC OF FS HO RE BA SIN

Z CRU A S. R PFZ Sacapulas SIER INAS AS M Gualn Rabinal Salama Motozintla Huehuetenango RA L BVF SIER SIERRA DE CH Zacapa UACS Tapachula M FZ Tacan
H IT
Chiquimula

ALTOS CUCHUMATANES

Barillas

MAYA

La Ceiba

Cocos Plate 93

OL TH BA

JChFZ
San Pedro Sula

LCF
Progreso

AF

CHORTIS

HONDURAS NUCLEAR CENTRAL AMERICA

Caribbean Plate
14
VA NUE OVIA SEG

EL SALVADOR

Pacific Ocean
90 87

NICARAGUA

Figure 1, Ortega et al., 2006

AGE
Q

MAYA
GUATEMALA
VOLCANICS ALLUVIUM TUFF

FAULT BOUNDED TERRANES

ACHI
ALLUVIUM

CHORTIS
SULA GUASTATOYA YORO HONDURAS/ NICARAGUA COYOL PADRE MIGUEL PUNTA GORDA PADRE MIGUEL PUNTA GORDA

JACALTECO
ALLUVIUM TUFF

MOTAGUA
ALLUVIUM TUFF

CENOZOIC

Pl Mi Ol Eo Pal

GUASTATOYA

?
SUBINAL

?
SUBINAL

PADRE MIGUEL

?
ATIMA CANTARRANAS

K MESOZOIC

L CAMPUR-SEPUR COBAN E L SAN RICARDO TODOS SANTOS POLOCHIC FAULT ZONE M E L

VALLE DE ANGELES VALLE DE ANGELES VALLE DE ANGELES

JOCOTN-CHAMELECN-LA CEIBA FAULT

EL TAMBOR GROUP BAJA VERAPAZ FAULT ZONE

ATIMA CANTARRANAS

ATIMA CANTARRANAS
TEPEMECHIN AGUA FRIA EL PLAN

MOTAGUA FAULT ZONE

TUNCAJ THRUST

T M
E SANTA ROSA GROUP

P L A T Ps E PALEOZOIC Ms

TUILN CHOCHAL TACTIC SACAPULAS CHICOL

CHORTS AND MAYA BLOCKS

SAN DIEGO PHYLLITE

CHIXOLOP FM SACAPULAS

CHUACS COMPLEX

LAS OVEJAS COMPLEX

LAS OVEJAS COMPLEX (?)

?
D S E A R O L Y C

AGUN FAULT

?
BARILLAS COMPLEX RABINAL

?
PALACAGUINA NUEVA SEGOVIA CACAGUAPA SCHIST

S. GABRIEL sequence

?
1.075 Ga GRANITES & GNEISSES

P
Figure 3, Ortega et al., 2006

1510

9030

9025
Salam Ro Salam
San Francisco El Tempisque

9020

LEGEND
Towns

Volcanic and fluvial deposits undifferenciated

CHUACS COMPLEX

Orthogneiss Augen gneiss, Bt-Pl gneiss Muscovite and garnet schist

Main roads Secondary roads Section line

Las Minas

34 63 46 66 52

34 49

SANTA ROSA GROUP

52

S1 foliation

Metalimestones Conglomeratic metasandstone phylites, shales Metaconglomerate

(metasandstone, phylites and deformed granite clasts )

72

Cerro Mums

SAN MIGUEL SEQUENCE

70 66

San Gabriel
80

46

Lineation Main faults Inferred contacts

Rabinal granite Main metasedimentary bands intruded by granites Metasediments, meta-arkoses, undifferentiated

Chixolop

B3

45 58 73 83 47 80 73

Cerro El Jocotillo

R o

Main trace of the Baja Verapaz Shear zone

Sa la m

68

44 85 44 54

51

52 54 53 47 70

53 50 80 64 26 66 60 15 10

SALAM
19 15 36 45 64 32 65 48 53 Cerro La Cruz 42 54 40 47 64 n 59 rat aO 53 d 45 46 50 77
Ro Sa nJ er nim o

Cerro El Cimiento

47

47
Cerro Camperez

56

San Miguel Chichaj

48 52

26

Cerro El Portezuelo

37 42

1505 RABINAL

ra eb Qu

B2
e qu y Pa Ro

Ro La E stan cia

43 34 67 55 58 40 22 34 71 45 40 40 15 33 06 28 55 32 10 41 22 82 64 48 48 54

77 78 05 34 32 34 14 40 55 20 10 21 51 34 40 32 46 35 35 38 79 85 75 44

B1
Cumbre Balamche

5
0 1 5 Km
Montaa Chiquihuital

15

?
18 07 10

?
38 25

El Durazno

1500

1500 9015

9030

9025

9020

B3
2000 1500 1000 500 0m

S30E

N30W S10W

B2

N10E

B1

Figure 5, Ortega et al., 2006

MAYA BLOCK

AGE
GUADALUPAN

Thompson & Miller 1944

Mc Birney 1963

Bohnenberger Van der Boom Bateson & Hall et al. 1966 1971 1971

Anderson et al. 1973

Chiapas PASO HONDO

S Chuacs

Central Guatemala

Maya Mts. Cuchumatanes

LEONARDIAN VAINILLA SANTA ROSA GROUP

CHOCHAL

SANTA ROSA GROUP

CHOCHAL

WOLFCAMP

TACTIC

GRUPERA TACTIC
SACAPULAS

UPPER TACTIC

L. TACTIC
SACAPULAS SACAPULAS

Bladen Volc.

PREWOLFCAMP

SANTA ROSA

CHUACS

CHUACS CHUACS

DS OI CHUACS IT N RA G

Figure 6, Ortega et al., 2006

SANTA ROSA GROUP ES PE RA NZ A

TACTIC

CHICOL

AGE

Terrane CHATINO JUCHATECO MIXTECO ZAPOTECO

MAYA

CHORTS

MIOCENE OLIGOCENE PAL-EOCENE LATE K EARLY K LATE J MIDDLE J EARLY J

?
TRIASSIC LATE PZ EARLY PZ NEOPROT MESOPROT

? ? ?

Limestone

Continental clastic

Marine clastic

Volcanic

Intrusive

Metamorphic

Figure 7, Ortega et al., 2006

20.00
207/204 Minumum

19.50

207/204 Maximum 206/204 Minimum 206/204 Maximum

20

19.00 18.50 18.00 17.50 17.00 16.50 16.00 15.50 15.00 MAYA CCT ECT SIUNA

SCT

CLIP

MAYA
o u gh Cayman tr

CCT ECT
15

Northern Nicaraguan Rise Southern Nicaraguan Rise t

He ss en rpm a esc

SCT SIUNA

CLIP
94 89 Figure 8, Ortega et al., 2006 84