Strong Earthquake Rocks Guatemala
The U.S. Geological Survey gives a magnitude of 6.8 and has coordinates for the epicenter, indicated by the star on the map above. Initially, the depth of the focus was estimated at 64.8 km but that has now been revised to 23 km. That is a shallow earthquake, one of the yellow balls. Most of the earthquakes this close to shore have been deeper and not as strong, shown as green balls on the map.
Labels: Earthquake, Geology, Guatemala
posted by Don Thieme @ 7:12 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
One thing I always loved about maps displayed with this information is that one can get a good sense of the pitch of subducting slab.
The "beach ball" makes sense for a piece of the Cocos Plate going under the Caribbean Plate here. Because the movement is so shallow and close to shore, though, I am wondering if there is some new fracturing of the Caribbean at work. Someone must be working on this, but it is not going to get any play in the popular press since the earthquake did relatively little harm.
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