Isthmus of Panama formed as result of plate tectonics

Washington, July 30 : A new University of Florida study has shown that the Isthmus of Panama was most likely formed by a Central American Peninsula colliding slowly with the South American continent through tectonic plate movement over millions of years.

The study, co-authored by Florida Museum of Natural History researchers Michael Kirby, Douglas Jones and Bruce MacFadden, uses geologic, chemical and biologic methods to date rocks and fossils found in sides of the Gaillard Cut of the Panama Canal.

The results show that instead of being formed by rising and subsiding ocean levels or existing as a string of islands as scientists previously believed, the Isthmus of Panama was first a peninsula of southern Central America before the underlying tectonic plates merged it with South America 4 million years ago.

"Scientists knew Panama was a North American peninsula, possibly as early as 19 million years ago because fossils that are closely related to North American land mammals, such as rhinos, horses, peccaries and dogs have been found in the Panama Canal during ongoing maintenance," said Kirby, lead author of the study.

"But we were not certain when this peninsula first formed and how long it may have existed," he added.

The canal's maintenance also exposes sediment layers and marine animal fossils, as well as strata of rocks and clay specific to numerous environments, including lagoon, delta, swamp, woodland and dry tropical forest.

Previous studies placed marine sediment as the youngest layers, suggesting the peninsula was submerged before finally joining with South America.

The current study revises the time order of strata, however, and concludes that the Panamanian peninsula joined with South America roughly 4 million years ago.

"Deep-sea deposits in one sediment layer suggest a short-lived strait may have existed across the Panama Canal Basin between 21 and 20 million years ago," said Jones, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History. "However, these short-lived straits probably had little impact on the long-term evolution of Central America's flora and fauna," he added.

The authors used alternative methods such as strontium isotope dating of fossils and re-analysis of vertebrate fossils to better determine the geologic sequence of the Canal.

According to Anthony Coates, a staff scientist emeritus at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama who has extensively studied the geological history of the rise of the Central American isthmus, the study brings together a diverse array of geologic evidence that convincingly suggests Central America was a peninsula and not a group of islands.

"They have made an important contribution to the land-based geologic evidence of the plate tectonic history of the formation of the Isthmus," he said. "Their results have important consequences for the nature of the global change engendered by the rise and closure of the isthmus," he added.

ANI