Variation of palaeostress patterns along the Oriente transform wrench corridor, Cuba: significance for Neogene–Quaternary tectonics of the Caribbean realm

In this study, we address the late Miocene to Recent tectonic evolution of the North Caribbean (Oriente) Transform Wrench Corridor in the southern Sierra Maestra mountain range, SE Cuba. The region has been affected by historical earthquakes and shows many features of brittle deformation in late Miocene to Pleistocene reef and other shallow water deposits as well as in pre-Neogene, late Cretaceous to Eocene basement rocks. These late Miocene to Quaternary rocks are faulted, fractured, and contain calcite- and karst-filled extension gashes. Type and orientation of the principal normal palaeostress vary along strike in accordance with observations of large-scale submarine structures at the south-eastern Cuban margin. Initial N–S extension is correlated with a transtensional regime associated with the fault, later reactivated by sinistral and/or dextral shear, mainly along E–W-oriented strike-slip faults. Sinistral shear predominated and recorded similar kinematics as historical earthquakes in the Santiago region. We correlate palaeostress changes with the kinematic evolution along the boundary between the North American and Caribbean plates. Three different tectonic regimes were distinguished for the Oriente transform wrench corridor (OTWC): compression from late Eocene–Oligocene, transtension from late Oligocene to Miocene (?) (D₁), and transpression from Pliocene to Present (D₂–D₄), when this fault became a transform system. Furthermore, present-day structures vary along strike of the Oriente transform wrench corridor (OTWC) on the south-eastern Cuban coast, with dominantly transpressional/compressional and strike-slip structures in the east and transtension in the west. The focal mechanisms of historical earthquakes are in agreement with the dominant ENE–WSW transpressional structures found on land.