N. S. MacLeod M. A. Lanphere William P. Dillon J. G. Vedder 1973 <p>Phyllite and marble dredged from the lower part of the&nbsp;continental slope between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula seem to&nbsp;support the contention that a pre-early Tertiary metamorphic belt&nbsp;extends from the western Greater Antilles into northern Central&nbsp;America. The minimum K-Ar ages derived from the samples suggest&nbsp;that the metamorphic event was pre-Late Cretaceous, and evaluation of&nbsp;the K-Ar data implies that this metamorphic event is not older than&nbsp;Late Jurassic. Greater antiquity, however, is inferred from structural&nbsp;and stratigraphic relations in British Honduras, where the latest regional&nbsp;metamorphic event was post-Early Permian and pre-Middle Jurassic. &nbsp;Rifting and extension related to plate motions along the British&nbsp;Honduras Quintana Roo margin through Mesozoic and earliest Cenozoic&nbsp;time presumably would preclude extensive regional metamorphism,&nbsp;permitting only limited development of schistose rocks&nbsp;there during that interval. The timing of metamorphic events in western&nbsp;Cuba is uncertain, but a pre-Middle Jurassic episode possibly is reflected&nbsp;in the phyllite and marble terranes of Isla de Pinos and Sierra de&nbsp;Trinidad. Local incipient metamorphism of Early and Middle Jurassic&nbsp;strata in the Sierra de los Organos may have resulted from severe&nbsp;tectonism that began in Late Cretaceous time and diminished in the&nbsp;Eocene.</p> application/pdf en U.S. Geological Survey Age and tectonic implications of some low-grade metamorphic rocks from the Yucatan Channel article