Plate Tectonic Constraints on the Biogeography of Middle America and the Caribbean Region

North America-Eurasia and South America-Africa were certainly joined in the classic reconstruction of Pangaea by Middle Triassic time. The line of collision and suture included the Appalachian Quachita-Marathon orogenic trend in the United States extending southwestward into what is now northeastern and southeastern Mexico and into Guatemala. Widespread continentality prevailed and there was no Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean Sea. In Late Triassic...