A late Miocene low-nutrient window for Caribbean reef formation?

Abstract

Miocene and Pliocene reef tracts of the Caribbean were less common and smaller than older Oligocene and younger Pleistocene to Recent reefs. In the present study, samples from the Arroyo Bellaco exposures in the Cibao Valley, northern Dominican Republic were analyzed for 87Sr/86Sr to refine the age for a rare, well-developed Mio-Pliocene reef sequence. A mean age of 6.2 million years old (Ma) was determined for the reef. This age places the reef in the latter part of the late Miocene Messinian stage. The reef originated in a low-nutrient window at the end of a global cooling event and sea level lowstand, coincident with a period of decreased upwelling intensity from 6.2 to 5.8 Ma. Reef demise is attributed to a latest Miocene transgression and an associated pulse of marine siliciclastic deposition.