The Izabal Basin is a spindle shaped pull apart basin, 100 km
long and 20 km wide, trending ENE. It is located along the Polochic fault at the transform boundary between the North American and the Caribbean plates. Multichannel migrated seismic sections reveal that the basin is asymmetric both in cross and along strike directions, the deepest side (3.2 sec t.w.t.) being to the north, close and parallel to the northern bend of the Polochic fault. Notwithstanding the absence of a direct correlation with a well, analysis of the seismostratigraphic and structural features, along with consultation of the existing literature, permit the recognition of four main stages of evolution since the middle Miocene, and a rough correlation of the sedimentary infilling with the Tertiary and Quaternary formations that outcrop around the lake.
