Caribbean Plate 1843 in this region are possibly megathrust earthquakes. Along the geologically complex southern boundary, the Caribbean Plate interacts with the South American Plate forming Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago (all on the Caribbean Plate), and islands off the coast of Venezuela (including the Leeward Antilles) and Colombia. This boundary is in part the result of transform faulting along with thrust faulting and some subduction. The rich Venezuelan petroleum fields possibly result from this complex plate interaction. The Caribbean plate is moving eastward about 22 millimeters per year in relation to the South American plate. In Venezuela much of the movement between
Dutch–Venezuelan crisis of 1908 Dutch–Venezuelan crisis of 1908 In 1908 a dispute broke out between the Netherlands and Venezuela when the Venezuelan president, Cipriano Castro, cut off trade with the Dutch island of Curaçao on the grounds that it was harbouring political refugees from Venezuela. Venezuela expelled the Dutch ambassador, prompting a Dutch dispatch of three warships - a "pantserschip" (coastal defence ship), the "Jacob van Heemskerk", and two protected cruisers, the "Gelderland" and the "Friesland". The Dutch warships had orders to intercept every ship that was sailing under the Venezuelan flag. On 12 December, the "Gelderland" captured the Venezuelan coast guard ship "Alix"