How a rare green mineral reveals the violent birth of the Caribbean Sea
In short: Geologists are trekking through Guatemala's Motagua Valley to trace jadeite deposits. By studying these rare stones and the surrounding rock, researchers are reconstructing the tectonic collisions and subduction events that shaped the Caribbean region 120 million years ago.
In November 2010, Museum Curator George E. Harlow led an expedition to the Motagua Valley, a fault zone where the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates meet. This area, known as a suture zone, contains evidence of ancient subduction—where oceanic crust plunged into the Earth's mantle—and plate collisions. These high-pressure environments are essential for the formation of jadeite jade and serpentinite.
The team identified an unmapped ophiolite, a section of seafloor crust pushed onto the continent. Back at the American Museum of Natural History, Dr. Harlow and Dr. Kennet Flores are performing geochemical analysis on collected samples. Their work aims to resolve the geological history of the region and provide a model for understanding similar tectonic puzzles globally.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Solving a Geological Puzzle in Guatemala
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