Puerto Rico is close to the deepest submarine depression in the North Atlantic Ocean (second in the world). The Puerto Rico Trench, roughly parallel to the northern coast of the island of Puerto Rico and lying about 75 miles (120 km) to the north. The Puerto Rico Trench is about 1,090 miles (1,750 km) long and 60 miles (100 km) wide. The deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean, the Milwaukee Depth, lies within the Puerto Rico Trench, at a depth of 27,493 feet (8,380 meters) in the western end of the trench, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Puerto Rico. The origin of the trench can be traced back to the beginning of the Tertiary period. The Puerto Rico Trench appears to be part of a complex system of sinistral strike-slip faults in the north Caribbean; the trench seems to have been opened continuously for about 70 million years. It is partially filled with sediments.
The Caribbean's greatest known depth is Cayman Trench (Bartlett Deep) between Cuba and Jamaica, at approximately 25,216 feet (7,686 meters) below sea level.
January 11, 2020
By Grace Hauck
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake (click here) shook Puerto Rico on Saturday morning, causing a landslide in the southern municipality of Peñuelas.
The quake at 8:54 a.m. local time struck 8 miles southeast of Guanica at a shallow depth of 3 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It is the most recent in a string of quakes and aftershocks that have left thousands on the island without power and water.
Preliminary reports by the USGS said the quake was a magnitude 6.0 at a depth of 6 miles.
The quake caused outages across the island, including areas of Lares, Adjuntas, Ponce and San German, according to Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority. The department was evaluating the extent of the damage.
There were no immediate reports of injuries.
In Peñuelas, a landslide sent people running, Telemundo Puerto Rico reported. Video of the landslide shows dust kicking up on a hillside as people below run in different directions. Drone video published by Me...
By Doyle Rice
Following a series of earthquakes, (click here) the situation in Puerto Rico remains dire, with more than 2,000 people in shelters, nearly 1 million without power and hundreds of thousands without water as of Thursday.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there have been more than 950 earthquakes and aftershocks recorded on Puerto Rico since Dec. 31, though many were weak and could not be felt. More than 500, however, have been of magnitude 2 or higher.
The worst quake – a magnitude 6.4 that struck early Tuesday – killed at least one person, injured at least nine and caused the power outage.
So why have there been so many earthquakes in Puerto Rico over the past few days?
"Puerto Rico has been hit by what scientists call an earthquake swarm, which is a series of earthquakes rather than the usual pattern of one dominant earthquake followed by aftershocks," John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California, told USA TODAY....
There is a great deal of instability in this region with the smaller techtonic plates. There is Haiti and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system (click here) between the North American and Caribbean plates.
Mexico experienced a devastating earthquake due to the fracturing of the Cocos plate (click here). The quake was so extreme it produced "earthquake lights." (click here)
By Robin George Andrews
Tectonic evolution of the Cocos Plate
On September 7, 2017, (click here) a magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck southern Mexico, killing dozens and injuring hundreds. While earthquakes are common enough in the region, this powerful event wasn’t any run-of-the-mill tremor.
That’s because part of the roughly 37-mile-thick tectonic plate responsible for the quake completely split apart, as revealed by a new study in Nature Geoscience. This event took place in a matter of tens of seconds, and it coincided with a gargantuan release of energy.
“If you think of it as a huge slab of glass, this rupture made a big, gaping crack,” says lead author Diego Melgar, an assistant professor of earthquake seismology at the University of Oregon. “All indications are that it has broken through the entire width of the thing.”...
The point to all this is to realize Puerto Rico is in danger from the climate crisis and in an ever growing frequency, earthquakes strong enough to bring about landslides and frequent electrical outages. The Puerto Rican people can't be expected to continually pull themselves up by the boot straps. They need to be provided refugee status and brought to the mainland USA.
It will be years before any further geological survey by the US Navy and/or the USGS is completed. The Puerto Rican people are our responsibility and they need a home where life can go forward rather than always falling back into paths of recovering from disaster.
