The Block is commonly delimited by the continental margin in the Gulf of Mexico to the north, in the Caribbean Sea to the east, and in the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and further, by the Motagua–Polochic Faults to the south-southeast, and by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the west.

[n 2][citation needed] Furthermore, it has been recently suggested that the Block's western extreme may rather extend past the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, along the Gulf of Mexico, and into Louisiana.

[9] The terrestrial portion of the Block encompasses all six districts of Belize, five northerly departments of Guatemala (Huehuetenango, Quiche, Alta Verapaz, Izabal, Peten), and five southeasterly states of Mexico (Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo).

[14][n 6] The Block is thought to experience significant counterclockwise rotation and a north-northwest down tilt, which gradually lowers the northern portion of the Yucatán Platform, thereby lifting its southern extreme in the Maya Mountains.

[21] It, together with the Oaxaquia, Suwannee, and Carolina Blocks, are thought to have constituted a peri-Gondwanan terrane on that continent's western, northwestern, northern, or eastern edge during the Appalachian–Caledonian or Ouachita–Marathon–Appalachian orogeny (that is, during the formation of Pangaea from the collision of Gondwana and Laurentia).

[23][n 10][n 11] Details of the Cenozoic (66–0 million years ago) geologic history of Middle America, including that of the Maya Block, are relatively more widely agreed upon.

[25] The Block's coastlines, which were initially more expansive than its present-day ones, are thought to have reached modern dimensions due to rising sea levels some 11–8 thousand years ago.

The variety and complexity of interpretations reflects dominance of models over data.Similarity of basement, Jurassic and Cretaceous sections on [the] Maya and Chortis [blocks] should be reason to relate the two.

Restoration of the blocks along the Cayman trend by re-aligning their eastern faulted margins also results in line-up the Río Hondo-Guayape systems.