624 T. W. VAUGHAN GEOLOGIC PIISTORY OF CENTRAL AMERICA 



During later Eocene (Ludian) and middle and upper Oligocene (Eu- 

 pelian and Aqnitanian) time there was extensive submergence in the 

 West Indies and interoceanic connection through a number of straits 

 across Central America. There may have been interoceanic connection 

 during lower Oligocene (Lattorfian) time, but this is not established. 

 The maximum submergence was in middle Oligocene (Rupelian) time. 

 Vulcanism was widespread in Central America and the Antilles during 

 Eocene and probably also during earlier Oligocene time. The line of the 

 great Mexican volcanoes had its inception at the close of the Cretaceous, 

 near the beginning of the Tertiary, according to Felix and Lenk. 



In Jamaica, Cuba, Saint Bartholomew, and Antigua, the later Eocene 

 age of some of the volcanic rocks is established. There was between the 

 upper Eocene and the middle Oligocene deposition periods great defor- 

 mation in the Antilles. The folding in the principal mountains of Ja- 

 maica, the Sierra Maestra of Cuba, and apparently those of Haiti, Porto 

 Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Saint Croix, appears to have taken place 

 at this time. Diastrophism seems also to have been active in Chiapas, 

 Tabasco, Peten, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. 



Miocene. — During older Miocene (Burdigalian) time apparently there 

 was in places connection between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as is 

 shown by deposits of this age containing fossils of Atlantic affinities on 

 the Pacific coast of Nicaragua and at other localities in Central America, 

 but such connections seemingly were restricted, not of wide extent, as in 

 upper Eocene and Oligocene time. 



As no upper Miocene has yet been identified in the West Indies, this is 

 supposed to have been a period of high uplift which terminated the con- 

 nection between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The middle and upper 

 Oligocene and lower Miocene sediments of Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Haiti, 

 Jamaica, Porto Rico, Anguilla, and Antigua, although deformed by tilt- 

 ing and faulting, are not intensely folded, as are the older sediments. 

 According to Hill, "In mid-Tertiary time granitoid intrusions were 

 pushed upward into the sediments of the Great Antilles, the Caribbean, 

 Costa Rican, and Panamic regions." The information I obtained in 

 Antigua and Saint Bartholomew accords with this opinion. 



That there was at some place interoceanic connection subsequent to 

 lower Miocene (Burdigalian) time is suggested, if not actually proven, 

 by the presence on Carrizo Creek, Imperial County, California, of a coral 

 fauna of post-Miocene affinities.^ 



8T. W. Vaughan: The reef-coral fauna of Carrizo Creek, Imperial County, California, 

 etc., U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 98, 1917, pp. 355-386, pis. 92-102. 



