Ground ruptures attributed to groundwater overexploitation damaging Jocotepec city in Jalisco, Mexico: 2016 field excursion of IGCP-641

IGCP Project 641 (Mechanisms, Monitoring and Modeling Earth
Fissure generation and Fault activation due to subsurface Fluid
exploitation – M3EF3) held its second international workshop from
November 2 to 6, 2016, in Puerto Vallarta and included a two-day
field trip to Guadalajara and Jocotepec in the Mexican state of Jalisco
(Fig. 1a). M3EF3 is aimed at i) understanding the mechanisms that
cause the formation of “ground ruptures”, as a response to changes in
the stress state in the subsoil, ii) monitoring their occurrence, and iii)
developing appropriate approaches to model their formation and
growth. Notice that many times it is difficult to discern whether a particular
instance of a “ruptured” land surface is due to an earth fissure
with a surface manifestation or a surface failure associated with the
activation of a pre-existing fault, especially where a fault has not been
mapped and where there is no obvious scarp. Therefore, in M3EF3
we preferred to use the term “ground rupture”, to refer to both such
occurrences.