American Plate (moving towards west) encounters the Caribbean Plate (moving towards east), causing a relatively active zone of subduction and systems of volcanic island-arc. The Antilles zone of subduction is in the southeast direction of this. In the same manner, the South Sandwich Islands which are located in the southern Atlantic also indicate an active zone of subduction. In this case, the Atlantic Plate undergoes subduction under the Antarctic Plate, leading to the creation of the volcanic South Sandwich Islands (Salkey, 59).
The majority of highly destructive tsunamis in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean were caused by either the result of volcanic eruption or seismic (earthquake) activity. A considerable proportion of these led to localized death and damage, but no regionally catastrophic scale damages beyond the Caribbean. There are numerous unconfirmed and confirmed tsunami events that led to localized flooding, particularly in the Caribbean Islands and South Sandwich Islands. There have been slightly over 50 confirmed tsunamis, differing in size, around the Caribbean Islands and South Sandwich Islands since the year 1530 (Selinus,