Lost islands in the northern Lesser Antilles: possible milestones in the Cenozoic dispersal of terrestrial organisms between South-America and the Greater Antilles

Our study aims to reconstruct the palaeogeography of northern part Lesser Antilles in order analyse whether emerged areas might have existed during Cenozoic, favouring terrestrial faunal dispersals between South America and Greater along present-day arc. The stratigraphy depositional environments islands Anguilla, St Martin, Tintamarre, Barthélemy, Barbuda Antigua are reviewed association with multichannel reflection seismic data acquired offshore since 80's Saba, Anguilla Banks Kalinago Basin, including most recent academic industrial surveys. Seven megasequences seven regional unconformities defined, calibrated from deep wells on Saba Bank various dredges performed marine cruises 70's vicinity islands. Onshore correlations allow us depict an updated detailed sedimentary organisation late Eocene Pleistocene. Paleogeographic reconstructions reveal sequences uplift emergence across hundredswide Eocene, Oligocene, early middle-Miocene latest Miocene-earliest Pliocene, interspersed by drowning episodes. ~200 km-long ~20 km-wide Basin opened as intra-arc basin - Oligocene. These periods may favoured existence episodic mega-islands transient connections Antilles, Aves Ridge (Saba Bank). During Pleistocene, archipelagos formed repeatedly glacial maximum