An updated stratigraphy of the Lesser Antilles islands, Aves Ridge and adjacent basins based on foraminifera

We present an updated biostratigraphic and paleo-environmental synthesis of the lithostratigraphic successions that crop out in the Eastern Caribbean region in the Lesser Antilles, the Kalinago and Marie Galante Basins and the Aves Ridge. This synthesis relies on larger benthic and planktonic foraminiferal analyses conducted by Marcelle BouDagher Fadel during the last 5 years. The platform of Anguilla has formed during the Aquitanian and the early Messinian. The carbonates of Saint Martin have deposited between the late Aquitanian and the Zanclean, those of Tintamarre between the late Aquitanian and the early Langhian and those of Saint Barthelemy and Roche Plate during the Lutetian, Priabonian, Aquitanian-Burdigalian and Serravalian. The Highland Formation in Barbuda has deposited during the Late Miocene and the Early Pliocene. The carbonates of Antigua have deposited between the late Rupelian and the Aquitanian. Those of the "old" arc of Martinique have deposited during the Chattian, Aquitanian and Burdigalian. The upper part of the Kalinago andMarie Galante Basins have deposited between the Chattian and the Holocene. On the Aves Ridge, finally, we found Bartonian and Aquitanian shallow-water limestones and Serravalian, Tortonian-Messinian, Zanclean and Calabrian deep-sea deposits. With her contribution to the Caribbean geology by dating such a substantial amount of onshore and offshore lithostratigraphic successions and samples, Marcelle Boudagher-Fadel led our community toward a new conception of the paleo-environmental evolution of the Eastern Caribbean through time. She greatly contributed to sharpen the chronology of major regional emergence or drowning episodes, then contributing to a better understanding of the paleogeographic changes that occurred in the region during the Cenozoic, which will help to gain knowledge on the geodynamical processes responsible for such changes.