GUATEMALA EARTHQUAKE 5.2 - 3 km ENE of Comapa, Guatemala 2022-12-11 15:03:11

 5.2 - 3 km ENE of Comapa, Guatemala

2022-12-11 15:03:11 (UTC)14.128°N 89.881°W191.7 km profundity

Regulatory Area

ISO

GTM

Area

Jutiapa

Country

Guatemala

Close by Spots

• Comapa, Jutiapa, Guatemala
• 4 km (2.5 mi) WSWPopulation: 1493
• Jalpatagua, Jutiapa, Guatemala
• 13.8 km (8.6 mi) WPopulation: 10469
• Atescatempa, Jutiapa, Guatemala
• 16 km (9.9 mi) ENEPopulation: 11543
• Jutiapa, Jutiapa, Guatemala
• 18.3 km (11.4 mi) NPopulation: 34332
• Ahuachapán, Ahuachapán, El Salvador
• 23.3 km (14.5 mi) SPopulation: 34102

Distance and course from focal point to local spot.

Structural Synopsis

Seismotectonics of the Caribbean Area and Area

Broad variety and intricacy of structural systems describes the edge of the Caribbean plate, including no less than four significant plates (North America, South America, Nazca, and Cocos). Slanted zones of profound quakes (Wadati-Benioff zones), sea channels, and circular segments of volcanoes plainly demonstrate subduction of maritime lithosphere along the Focal American and Atlantic Sea edges of the Caribbean plate, while crustal seismicity in Guatemala, northern Venezuela, and the Cayman Edge and Cayman Channel show change shortcoming and pull-separated bowl tectonics.

Along the northern edge of the Caribbean plate, the North America plate moves westwards concerning the Caribbean plate at a speed of roughly 20 mm/yr. Movement is obliged along a few significant change blames that expand toward the east from Isla de Roatan to Haiti, including the Swan Island Shortcoming and the Oriente Shortcoming. These issues address the southern and northern limits of the Cayman Channel. Further east, from the Dominican Republic to the Island of Barbuda, relative movement between the North America plate and the Caribbean plate turns out to be progressively complicated and is to some extent obliged by almost circular segment equal subduction of the North America plate underneath the Caribbean plate. This outcomes in the development of the profound Puerto Rico Channel and a zone of transitional center tremors (70-300 km profundity) inside the subducted piece. Albeit the Puerto Rico subduction zone is believed to be equipped for creating a megathrust tremor, there have been no such occasions in the previous 100 years. The last plausible interplate (push shortcoming) occasion here happened on May 2, 1787 and was broadly felt all through the island with archived annihilation across the whole northern coast, including Arecibo and San Juan. Starting around 1900, the two biggest tremors to happen in this area were the August 4, 1946 M8.0 Samana quake in northeastern Hispaniola and the July 29, 1943 M7.6 Mona Section quake, the two of which were shallow pushed shortcoming seismic tremors. A critical part of the movement between the North America plate and the Caribbean plate in this locale is obliged by a progression of left-parallel strike-slip blames that separate the island of Hispaniola, remarkably the Septentrional Shortcoming in the north and the Enriquillo-Plantain Nursery Issue in the south. Movement nearby the Enriquillo-Plantain Nursery Shortcoming framework is best recorded by the overwhelming January 12, 2010 M7.0 Haiti strike-slip quake, its related post-quake tremors and a practically identical seismic tremor in 1770.

Moving east and south, the plate limit bends around Puerto Rico and the northern Lesser Antilles where the plate movement vector of the Caribbean plate comparative with the North and South America plates is less angled, bringing about dynamic island-circular segment tectonics. Here, the North and South America plates subduct towards the west underneath the Caribbean plate along the Lesser Antilles Channel at paces of roughly 20 mm/yr. Because of this subduction, there exists both middle center quakes inside the subducted plates and a chain of dynamic volcanoes along the island curve. Albeit the Lesser Antilles is viewed as one of the most seismically dynamic locales in the Caribbean, not many of these occasions have been more prominent than M7.0 over the course of the last hundred years. The island of Guadeloupe was the site of one of the biggest megathrust tremors to happen around here on February 8, 1843, with a proposed extent more noteworthy than 8.0. The biggest ongoing transitional profundity quake to happen along the Lesser Antilles bend was the November 29, 2007 M7.4 Martinique seismic tremor northwest of Post De-France.

The southern Caribbean plate limit with the South America plate strikes east-west across Trinidad and western Venezuela at an overall pace of roughly 20 mm/yr. This limit is described by major change deficiencies, including the Focal Reach Shortcoming and the Boconó-San Sebastian-El Pilar Blames, and shallow seismicity. Beginning around 1900, the biggest quakes to happen in this area were the October 29, 1900 M7.7 Caracas tremor, and the July 29, 1967 M6.5 quake close to this equivalent locale. Further toward the west, a wide zone of compressive distortion drifts southwestward across western Venezuela and focal Colombia. The plate limit isn't clear cut across northwestern South America, yet misshapening advances from being overwhelmed via Caribbean/South America assembly in the east to Nazca/South America combination in the west. The change zone between subduction on the eastern and western edges of the Caribbean plate is described by diffuse seismicity including low-to moderate extent (M<6.0) quakes of shallow to middle of the road profundity.

The plate limit seaward of Colombia is likewise described by union, where the Nazca plate subducts underneath South America towards the east at a pace of roughly 65 mm/yr. The January 31, 1906 M8.5 quake happened on the shallowly plunging megathrust connection point of this plate limit fragment. Along the western shore of Focal America, the Cocos plate subducts towards the east underneath the Caribbean plate at the Center America Channel. Intermingling rates differ between 72-81 mm/yr, diminishing towards the north. This subduction brings about moderately high paces of seismicity and a chain of various dynamic volcanoes; middle center tremors happen inside the subducted Cocos plate to profundities of almost 300 km. Starting around 1900, there have been many decently estimated moderate profundity seismic tremors around here, including the September 7, 1915 M7.4 El Salvador and the October 5, 1950 M7.8 Costa Rica occasions.

The limit between the Cocos and Nazca plates is portrayed by a progression of north-south moving change shortcomings and east-west moving spreading communities. The biggest and most seismically dynamic of these change limits is the Panama Break Zone. The Panama Break Zone ends in the south at the Galapagos crack zone and in the north at the Center America channel, where it frames part of the Cocos-Nazca-Caribbean triple intersection. Quakes along the Panama Break Zone are by and large shallow, low-to transitional in greatness (M<7.2) and are typically correct parallel strike-slip blaming tremors. Starting around 1900, the biggest tremor to happen along the Panama Break Zone was the July 26, 1962 M7.2 quake.

References for the Panama Crack Zone:

Molnar, P., and Sykes, L. R., 1969, Tectonics of the Caribbean and Center America Locales from Central Components and Seismicity: Geographical Society of America Notice, v. 80, p. 1639-1684.