The Caribbean Tectonic Plate has an area of ​​1988387.8 Mile², which includes Central America from Guatemala to Panama and the entire bottom of the Caribbean Sea. This small plate is compressed between the large plates of North America, South America and Coconuts in the Pacific Ocean side .

About 160 to 180 million years ago, the Pangaea supercontinent start a fracturing process which divided the future Plate of the Americas, there came up a rise of the Earth's mantle rocks, process that continues today. This crust of land under the sea is in contact by the East with the Plates of North and South American that are formed by granite, sediments and metamorphic rocks sow it is of lower density. On the West side of the Caribbean Plate during the Tertiary Period, the Cocos Plate slid under it causing a thrust force which is transmitted by the rigidity and density of the Caribbean Plate to the ast end where also slid under it the American plates. The thrust caused by the Cocos Plate continues moving eastward the Caribbean Plate process that has led to large areas of fracturing on the plate and the surrounding area .

On both sides of the Caribbean Plate (Central America and the Antilles ) along these two breakages, the outcrop of the crust and rise of magma through the numerous volcanoes transformed the regional geography closing the passage that existed between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. The importance of this process on the biodiversity and biogeography of both regional and continental fauna, is undeniable.

In the diagrams of the Caribbean Sea crust can be appreciate the different types of seabed.

Geological Cut North-South of the Caribbean Basin

Geological Cut East-West of the Caribbean Basin