Where does the North American Plate meet the Caribbean Plate?

The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate that borders the North American Plate. This regional boundary, along with its other plate margins, is a zone of intense seismic activity featuring frequent earthquakes, occasional tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. The Caribbean Plate itself covers approximately 3.2 million square kilometres underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea.

What we know

• The Caribbean plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the northern coast of South America. [1, 2]
• The Caribbean plate borders the North American plate, the South American plate, the Nazca plate, and the Cocos plate. [2, 5]
• Borders of the Caribbean plate are regions of intense seismic activity, including frequent earthquakes, occasional tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. [2]

Where to go next

• what followedWhat hazards are caused by Caribbean Plate boundaries?
• compared withWhat is the size and composition of the North American Plate?
• the bigger pictureHow does the South American plate interact with neighboring plates?
• whereWhere is the Cocos plate located relative to Central America?
• whenWhat historical event split the Farallon plate into the Cocos and Nazca plates?
• an unexpected connectionHow does an oceanic plate near Costa Rica connect to Iceland?Both the Cocos plate touching the Caribbean plate and distant regions like Iceland are tied together through the expansive global network of interacting tectonic plates involving the North American Plate.

Sources

• [1]Caribbean Plate (Wikidata Q673071) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Caribbean plate · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]North American plate · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]South American plate · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Cocos plate · CC BY-SA 4.0