Modern plate tectonic reconstruction of Mexico and Central America shows that the southeast-extend ing Precambrian backbone of Mexico, together with the east-flanking accreeted Huastecan (Appalachian- Caledonian) orogenic belt, are geotectonic elements practically absent in Central America, except west- ern and northern Guatemala and Belize, and contrib- uted little to the mineral potential of the entire region._x000D_
The gradual accretion of the Cordilleran oro- genic belt took place against the western-south- western margin of the Precambrian backbone, and its consolidation required several tectonic events from the medial(?) Paleozoic to the end of the Mesozoic. The striking features of this "long- lived" orogenic belt are the massive sulphide min- eralization in the upper Paleozoic eugeoclinal as- semblage, the widespread gold occurrence in quartz veins in the lower Mesozoic volcanics and related intrusives, the carbonate-hosted silver-bearing lead-zince deposits of the Mississippi Valley-type (or Pine Point-type) around carbonate banks within the Lower Cretaceous back-arc miogeocline, that de- veloped over the Precambrian backbone and deeply- eroded Huastecan orogenic belt, the massive sul- phide (Pb-Zn) deposits in the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous sequence, transitional from miogeocline to eugeocline, which carry high grades in silver, and the iron deposits in this transitional facies, which are described in the literature as related to dioritic intrusives of Late Cretaceous age._x000D_
Central America, south and southeast of the Mota- gua-Polochic fault system, forms part of the in- ternal zones of this orogenic belt.