The pattern of faulting and fault-related deformation in Cretaceous to Neogene rocks, together with the distribution of Neogene sediments, suggest that Jamaica is the site of 2 complex, right-stepping restraining bends along the strike-slip plate boundary between the N American and Caribbean plates. Block convergence at the E bend between the Plantain Garden and Duanvale fault zones is manifest by topographic uplift (>2km), rapid erosion, and NW-SE shortening of Cretaceous and Paleogene metamorphic, volcanic and sedimentary rocks in the Blue Mountains and Wagwater Belt. Limited data on the age of faulting in Jamaica suggest that deformation and uplift related to bends in the faults probably began in the middle to late Miocene and was roughly contemporaneous with initial strike slip along the E extension of the Plaintain Garden fault zone in S Hispaniola. In Jamaica it is unclear how observed compressional deformation relates to the following 3 mechanisms: 1) restraining bend development or interaction of 2 parallel, overstepping strike-slip faults; 2) simple shear adjacent to a single strike-slip fault: or 3) end effects caused by termination of a single strike-slip fault.-from Authors
