Our study provides 18 new paleolatitude estimates from the Caribbean region that span the interval from 81 Ma to the present. These are based on the analysis of over 430 discrete paleomagnetic samples from sedimentary units and 230 measurements made along split-core sections of basalt. Our paleolatitude estimates include corrections that account for a polarity ambiguity bias that occurs when dealing with azimuthally unoriented drill cores that have shallow paleomagnetic inclinations.
Fifteen of the paleolatitude estimates are from Sites 999 and 1001, which lie in the interior of the Caribbean plate. These data provide evidence for the Caribbean plate being positioned near the equator during the Late Cretaceous and then migrating northward to its current position at an average rate of 18 km/m.y. The paleolatitudes estimated in this study are consistent with models that have the Caribbean plate originating either in the Pacific Ocean or in an intra-American position during the Late Cretaceous. In both models, the southern portion of the Caribbean plate (particularly Site 999) would have been within 5° of the equator at ~80 Ma, at ~7.5°N-9°N from 45 to 25 Ma, and would have subsequently moved more rapidly north to the current Site 999 latitude of 12.7°N.