Caribbean Geoscience Conference
Next Conference: 21st CGC, June 7 - 13, 2025
Kingston, Jamaica
About
The Caribbean Geoscience Conference is a venue to help the spread of information about the geosciences in the Caribbean and adjacent areas, and to encourage cooperation between the widely spread members of the Caribbean geoscience community. The Caribbean Geoscience Conference (formerly Caribbean Geological Conference) series has encouraged communication between Caribbean geoscientists for almost 60 years.
La Conferencia de Geociencias del Caribe es un espacio para promover la difusión de información sobre las geociencias en el Caribe y áreas adyacentes, así como para fomentar la cooperación entre los miembros de la comunidad geocientífica caribeña, que están geográficamente dispersos. La serie de conferencias, conocida anteriormente como Conferencia Geológica del Caribe, ha promovido la comunicación entre geocientíficos de la región durante casi 60 años.
Hosted by the Geological Society of Jamaica
Conference Schedule
June 7 & 8
June 9
June 10
June 11
June 12
June 13
Call for Abstracts
The conference organizing committee welcomes the submission of abstracts at this time. The submission deadline for abstracts is Friday 10 January 2025.
Abstracts should have a short informative title (please avoid company names in the title), a list of authors, and the affiliation of the authors.
You should indicate whether you prefer an oral or a poster presentation.
The body of the abstract should outline the objectives, methods, results and conclusions of the research and should be no more than 500 words in length.
Submission of an abstract implies that at least one author will register for and attend the conference.
The goal of this event is to encourage pan-Caribbean communications about the current state of the Caribbean Geoscience
Sessions
Abstracts for oral and poster presentations are invited on any suitable topic of interest to the geological community as well as to closely aligned subjects. It is expected that the conference will be run as a series of thematic sessions. We welcome additional suggestions for sessions and anyone wishing to organize a session should contact the organizing committee. Suggestions for sessions are as follows (but the list should not be regarded as exhaustive).
Field Trips
The conference will organize a series of pre-conference and post-conference field trips. There will be a series of one-day field trips as well as one two-day field trip. A provisional list of field trips is listed below. Space will be limited, and a place can only be guaranteed once payment has been received.
Field Trip 1 (Pre-Conference). Leaders: Alan Hastie and Donovan Blissett.
The Wag Water Belt and the Newcastle Volcanics (Jamaican Type Adakites). This trip will briefly examine the geology of the Wag Water Belt. Field stops will include red-bed conglomerates of the Wag Water Formation, marine shales of the ‘Richmond’ facies of the Wag Water Formation, nodular limestones (with oysters and rare specimens of the foraminifer Ranikothalia) and the Newcastle Volcanics. This trip will allow extra time for participants to locket samples of the Newcastle Volcanics which have been set up as a distinctive igneous rock type now called Jamaican-Type Adakites (JTAs). The field trip will travel from Kingston along the Irish Town road to Catherines Peak, and there are excellent views over the city of Kingston.
Field Trip 2 (Pre-Conference). Leader: Simon Mitchell. Mid Maastrichtian-early Paleocene of the Central Inlier.
The Central Inlier exposes the second largest area of Cretaceous rocks in Jamaica with excellent exposures of the mid-Maastrichtian to early Paleocene Kellits Synthem. The Kellits Synthem is a major transgressive–regressive cycle that rests unconformably upon older Cretaceous rocks and is overlain unconformably by rocks of the Eocene Yellow Limestone Group. The field trip will examine exposures along the Rio Minho in the area surrounding the community of Frankfield in northern Clarendon. The succession begins with red bed conglomerates, passes up into estuarine (tidal) mudstones and then into rudist-bearing limestones. The limestones contain excellent examples of many late Cretaceous rudists including small radiolitids, larger radiolitids and the gigantic recumbent Titanosarcolites. The synthem is completed by a regressive succession as renewed volcanism supplied andesitic and dacitic detritus that rapidly filled the depositional basin. Active volcanism at this time is indicated by pumice and two thick ignimbrites.
Field Trip 3 (Pre-Conference). Leader: Simon Mitchell.
Paleogene limestone blocks and belts of Jamaica. The Paleocene (particularly the Eocene) saw the development of a platform (shallow-water) and trough (deep-water) limestone stratigraphy in Jamaica related to a new stress regime as the Nicaragua Rise underwent extension. This is recorded in the successions seen in the Yellow Limestone and White Limestone groups, with changing patterns of shallow-water and deep-water marlstone and limestone accumulating over time. This field trip will explore areas in St Ann that show some of these successes and place them in their geotectonic settings. It will also examine recent sections exposed along the north-south Leg of Highway 2000. There will be opportunities to collect rock samples representing some of the distinctive facies (and their foraminifera) developed in the Yellow Limestone and White Limestone groups of Jamaica.
Field Trip 4 (Post-Conference). Leader: Matthew Rahamut.
Coastal geology of St Thomas. The rocks of the Coastal Group of St Thomas were deposited during the uplift of the island over the last 14 million years. This field trip will examine some of the distinctive clastic and carbonate rocks that were deposited including coral-rich limestone and deltaic deposits.
CGC Standing Committee
John Weber
Geology Professor, Grand Valley State University
Grenville Draper
Geology Professor, Florida International University
Simon Mitchell
Geology Professor, University of The West Indies, Mona
Daniel Laó Dávila
Geology Professor and Associate Head, Oklahoma State University, Boone Pickens School of Geology
Richard Coutou
Geologist and Environment Management Consultant
Machel Higgins
Postdoctoral Associate, Florida International University
The Venue
Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, Jamaica
Traveling to Kingston
Jamaica is served by two major international airports: Kingston Norman Manley (in Kingston) and Sangster (in Montego Bay) with flights to many destinations in the Caribbean, North America and Europe. It is more convenient to fly to Kingston Norman Manley for the conference, but connections to Sangster International Airport (about 3 hours) can be made using Knutsford Express (a coach company which can be booked online). For those wishing to vacation in Jamaica before or after the conference, Sangster International Airport may be a better option.
Visa
Many visitors to Jamaica do not need a visa to enter the island. However, you should check to see if you need a visa early. Should you require a letter of invitation, the conference organizing committee can provide one once you have submitted an abstract. The conference organizing committee cannot arrange visas for travel to Jamaica.
June 7 to 13, 2025
Contact the Geological Society of Jamaica for alternate accommodations. GeolSocJamaicaConference@gmail.com