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Figure 1. Late Maastrichtian paleogeographic map of northwestern South America. The Proto-Caribbean foreland basin, then largely confined to Venezuela and Trinidad, comprised a northern flysch trough flanked in the S by a N-facing slope and shelf. Solid arrows reflect approximate sediment-supply direction. Insignificant at this scale is palinspastic restoration for: (1) shortening of the foreland basin by thrust-front advance, greater in the E (basin now narrower in Central Venezuela-Trinidad sector) because Proto-Caribbean plate convergence here was more orthogonal for longer time(see text); (2) distributed NW-SE shortening in Colombia and Western Venezuela (Higgs, 2008b, 5-0 Ma development); and (3) since 2.5 Ma, 50 km of eastward relative movement of the "Northern Andes Block", including the "Maracaibo block" (Higgs, 2008b). "Predicted" means non-exposed, either buried in thrust sheets, or deeply buried under (or immediately ahead of) the present-day frontal thrust.