Quaternary interglacial coral and marine uplifted terraces of Maisí

The marine and coral terraces are made up of coral and shelly limestone with abundant fossils. They are underlain by the Jaimanitas Formation of Late Pleistocene age (MIS 5e, 122 ± 6 ka) (Toscano et al., 1999) and older, underlying Pleistocene strata. About 28 terrace levels are observed, with an elevation up to 560 ± 10 m. Most of the terraces are very well preserved where fossil tidal notches, caverns and other karst features are present. These represent the record of approximately 2 Ma of sea level fluctuations. The area is tectonically linked to the Oriente transform fault zone in eastern Cuba, which is the boundary between the North American and Caribbean plates, where block uplifts of 0.33 ± 0.01 mm/yr are recorded (Peñalver et al., 2021). Geomorphologically, the area is a large ring of about 75 km long covering the eastern coastal zone of Cuba as a staircase being narrow at north and south, and wider in the east corner. Steps are cut by rivers forming gorges with large transversal outcrops. Due to the active tectonics, predominantly tilting and folding, in some places the same step has different altitude at both sides of the gorge. The lower terrace has blocks overturned from the sea by hurricanes and landslide features like crowns are observed.