Earthquake Fault Lines Located in Haiti

March 11, 2013 9:05 AM

Haiti is located in the Island of Hispaniola and seismically very active because of its fault lines. Scientists have confirmed that the Haitian side of the Hispaniola Island lies between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. According to seismologists, the Caribbean plate has an eastward-bound movement with a drift of 20 mm each year. Tough this looks really small, the movement of the giant plates lead to enormous pressure buildup below the crust of Earth.

The fault lines located in Haiti are caused by the movement of these tectonic plates. There are two fault lines which are known as strike-slip faults. The fault line to the North of Haiti is called the Septentrional-Orient fault zone, abbreviated as SOFZ. Flanking Haiti from the South is the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone, abbreviated at EPGZ or EPGFZ. Each of these fault zones are known to share 50 percent of relative movement between the Caribbean and the North American tectonic plates.

To the West of Haiti is the Cayman Trench where both these faults merge. Both Septentrional-Orient fault zone and Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone are left coaxial lateral moving fault system. Researchers think that Gonave Microplate covering 73,000 square miles is bound by these two fault zones of Haiti. Scientists theorize that this microplate is gradually moving away from the Caribbean tectonic plate and will eventually fuse with the North American tectonic plate. The tectonic movements of the fault zones caused a massive earthquake of 7.0 on Richter scale that hit Port-au-Prince in 2010 with a power equivalent to 35 Hiroshima Atomic bombs.

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Earthquake Fault Lines Located in Haiti

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