Decreasing uplift rates and Pleistocene marine terraces settlement in the central lesser Antilles fore-arc (La Désirade Island, 16°N)

Abstract

This study investigates the Lesser Antilles fore-arc at the latitude of Guadeloupe Archipelago and evidences that La Désirade Island, the eastermost island of the forearc, displays a staircase coastal sequence including four uplifted marine terraces and an upper reefal platform with mean shoreline angle elevations ranging from 10 to 210 m above sea level (asl). The platform paleobathymetry is constraint by a detailed analysis of the sediments. We propose a revised morphostratigraphy for this coastal sequence including 5 paleo-shorelines based on six U/Th dating from aragonitic corals from the three lowest terraces combined with paleobathymetric analysis of the fossil corals present in the upper platform. Terrace and upper platform carving of construction periods occurred during Marine Isotopic Stages MIS 5e, MIS 9, and during the intervals MIS 15–17, MIS 19–25 and MIS 31–49 (upper coral reef platform). Our results evidence a bulk decreasing uplift rate since early Calabrian to Present-Day, clearly documented since 310 ka (MIS 9) (from 0.14 to 0.19 to ca 0 mm/y). Our data are consistent with first the transient influence of the subducting oceanic Tiburon ridge during Calabrian, then with other parametres of the subduction zone since late Calabrian to Present-Day (dip of the slab, basal erosion of the upper plate, inherited structures …).