Abstract. A database of ~250 active fault traces in the Caribbean and Central American regions has been assembled to characterize the seismic hazard and tectonics of the area, as part of the GEM Foundation's Caribbean and Central American Risk Assesment (CCARA) project. The dataset is available in many vector GIS formats, and contains fault trace locations as well as attributes describing fault geometry and kinematics, slip rates, data quality and uncertainty, and other metadata as available. The data is public and open-source (available at https://github.com/GEMScienceTools/central_am_carib_faults), will be updated progressively as new data is available, and is open to community contribution. The active fault data show deformation in the region to be centered around the margins of the Caribbean plate. Northern Central America has sinistral and reverse faults north of the sinistral Motagua-Polochic Fault Zone, which accommodates sinistral Caribbean-North American relative motion. The Central American Highlands extend east-west along a broad array of normal faults, bound by the Motagua-Polochic Fault Zone in the north and dextral faulting in the southwest between the Caribbean plate and the Central American forearc. Faulting in southern Central America is complicated, with trench-parallel reverse and sinistral faults. The northern Caribbean-North American plate boundary is sinistral offshore of Central America, with transpressive stepovers through Jamaica, southern Cuba and Hispaniola. Farther east, deformation becomes more contractional closer to the Lesser Antilles subduction zone, with minor extension and sinistral shear throughout the upper plate, accommodating oblique convergence of the Caribbean and North American plates.
Geologic and Tectonic Development of the Caribbean Plate Boundary in Southern Central America
