NW-SE dip seismic cross section showing the principal seismic termination and interpretation of four main unconformities.
Surface structural cross section across the Interior Ranges, showing the structural styles of the outcropping ranges. The thrusts painted in red correspond to the youngest-short wavelength thrust system .
Tectonic belts of Acarigua area
In the Acarigua area the Caribbean Mountains consist of three tectonic belts that are continuations of similar belts found farther to the east. The western Caribbean Mountains contain a series of low-angle thrust faults that place the metasediments of the Cordillera de la Costa Belt over the lower grade metasediments of the Central Belt, which is thrust in turn over the Rio Guache Formation. The offset of these basal thrust faults by a complex series of high-angle faults suggests that the maximum possible amount of right-lateral strike-slip displacement along the Bocono fault is 50 kilometers and that no strike-slip displacement at all need have occurred. Isopach data for Cretaceous platform sediments suggest that the western limit of thrust faulting was caused by a thinning of decollement horizons along a pronounced northsouth jog in the Venezuelan continental margin.