Earthquakes

Preliminary simulations of the tsunami from the March 11, 2011 M=9.1 subduction zone earthquake offshore of Honshu, Japan.

Preliminary simulation of the tsunami from the September 8, 2017 M=8.1 intermediate-depth earthquake offshore of Chiapas, Mexico

Preliminary simulations of the 2010 Chilean tsunami from the 27 February 2010 M=8.8 subduction zone earthquake, offshore Bio-Bio, Chile

Alaska has more large earthquakes than the rest of the United States combined. More than three-quarters of the state’s population live in an area that can experience a magnitude 7 earthquake. Our research provides objective science that helps stakeholders prepare for and mitigate the effects of future earthquakes and tsunamis, which bolsters the economic health and well-being of Alaska and the...

Preliminary simulation of the tsunami from the October 25, 2010 M=7.7 subduction zone earthquake offshore of the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia

Release Date: NOVEMBER 12, 2018 A new picture of the geometry of subducting slabs around the world, the locations of the world’s largest earthquakes.

The December 26, 2004 magnitude (M) 9.1 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake occurred along a tectonic subduction zone in which the India Plate, an oceanic plate, is being subducted beneath the Burma micro-plate, part of the larger Sunda plate. The boundary between the downgoing and overriding plates of the subduction zone is marked by the Sunda Trench above. Here we provide a brief overview of the tectonic...

Earthquakes have been documented in the northeastern Caribbean since the arrival of Columbus to the Americas; written accounts of these felt earthquakes exist in various parts of the world. To better understand the earthquake cycle in the Caribbean, the records of earthquakes in earlier catalogs and historical documents from various archives, which are now available online, were critically...

The Puerto Rico trench exhibits great water depth, extremely low gravity anomaly, and a tilted carbonate platform between (reconstructed) elevations of +1300 m and -4000 m. we suggest that these features are manifestations of large vertical movements of a segment of the Puerto Rico Trench, its forearc, and the island of Puerto Rico that took place 3.3 m.y. ago over a time period as short as 14-40...

Strike-slip faults in the forearc region of a subduction zone often present significant seismic hazard because of their proximity to population centers. We explore the interaction between thrust events on the subduction interface and strike-slip faults within the forearc region using 3-D models of static Coulomb stress change.

To help understand the origin of the unusual bathymetry, gravity, and vertical tectonics of the plate boundary and to provide constraints for hazard assessment, the morphology of the entire 770-km-long trench from the Dominican Republic in the west to Anguilla in the east was mapped with multibeam echosounder during three cruises in 2002 and 2003. Parts of the Puerto Rico Trench were previously...

Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are located at an active plate boundary between the North American plate and the northeast corner of the Caribbean plate. Plate movements have caused large magnitude earthquakes and devastating tsunamis. The USGS has an ongoing program to identify and map the faults in this region using various geophysical and geological methods in order to estimate the location...