U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR U.S.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Seismicity of the Earth 19002010

Mexico and Vicinity
Compiled by Harley M. Benz, 1 Richard, L. Dart, 1 Antonio Villaseor, 2 Gavin P. Hayes, 1 Arthur C. Tarr, 1 Kevin P. Furlong, 3 and Susan Rhea 1
PRE-INSTRUMENTAL SEISMICITY 15001899
U.S. Geological Survey Institute of Earth Sciences, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain 3 Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16802 USA
2

OPEN-FILE REPORT 20101083-F Revised September, 2011

TECTONIC SUMMARY

Located atop three of the large tectonic plates, Mexico is one of the world's most seismologically active regions. The relative motion of these crustal plates causes frequent earthquakes and occasional volcanic eruptions. Most of the Mexican landmass is on the westward moving North America plate. The Pacific Ocean floor south of Mexico is being carried northeastward by the underlying Cocos plate. Because oceanic crust is relatively dense, when the Pacific Ocean floor encounters the lighter continental crust of the Mexican landmass, the ocean floor is subducted beneath the North America plate creating the deep Middle America trench along Mexico's southern coast. Also as a result of this convergence, the westward moving Mexico landmass is slowed and crumpled creating the mountain ranges of southern Mexico and earthquakes near Mexico's southern coast. As the oceanic crust is pulled downward, it melts; the molten material is then forced upward through weaknesses in the overlying continental crust. This process has created a region of volcanoes across south-central Mexico known as the Cordillera Neovolcnica. The area west of the Gulf of California, including Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, is moving northwestward with the Pacific plate at about 95 mm per year. Here, the Pacific and North America plates grind past each other creating strike-slip faulting, the southern extension of California's San Andreas fault. In the past, this relative plate motion pulled Baja California away from the coast forming the Gulf of California and is the cause of earthquakes in the Gulf of California region today. Mexico has a long history of destructive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In September 1985, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake killed more than 9,500 people in Mexico City. In southern Mexico, Volcn de Colima and El Chichn erupted in 2005 and 1982, respectively. Paricutn volcano, west of Mexico City, began venting smoke in a cornfield in 1943; a decade later this new volcano had grown to a height of 424 meters. Popocatpetl and Ixtacchuatl volcanos ("smoking mountain" and "white lady," respectively), southeast of Mexico City, occasionally vent gas that can be clearly seen from the City, a reminder that volcanic activity is ongoing. In 1994 and 2000 Popocatpetl renewed its activity forcing the evacuation of nearby towns, causing seismologists and government officials to be concerned about the effect a large-scale eruption might have on the heavily populated region. Popocatpetl volcano last erupted in 2010.
DATA SOURCES AND MAP DISPLAY
110 100 90

Events causing deaths

110 100 90

1812

2011

UNITED STATES
120 115 110 105 100 95 90
30

85

1887
30

Santa Cruz I s. Santa R osa I s. Santa Catalina Is.

NA Los ND RE Angeles AS

SA

Atlanta

Phoenix
Dallas

FA UL T

MEXICO

San Clemente Is.

San Diego

Mexicali

El Paso

UNITED

STATES
20

1568 1864 1870

GUATEMALA

20
BELIZE

Mobile

Ba ja Ca li

Austin
fo

Jacksonville

30

Hermosillo
I sla G uadelupe (Mexico)

I. Tiburon

Chihuahua

Miss

iss

ip

Fa

I. de la Guardia

San Antonio

Houston

New Orleans
n

30

1773 1874 HONDURAS 1873 1773 1854 1873

NICARAGUA

rn ia

I. Cedros

The earthquake locations shown on the main map (left) and on the depth profiles (lower left) are taken from the global 19002007 Centennial catalog (Engdahl and Villaseor, 2002) and a catalog of high-quality depth determinations for the period 19642002 (Engdahl, personal comm., 2003) . Major earthquakes (7.5=M=8.2) are labeled with the year of occurrence, while earthquakes (8.0=M=8.2) are labeled with the year of occurrence and also denoted by a white outline (Tarr and others, 2010). The Seismic Hazard and Relative Plate Motion map (below) shows the generalized seismic hazard (Giardini and others, 1999) and relative plate motion vectors (open arrows with labels; DeMets and others, 1994).

ul f of C al if or ni a

Tampa

MEXICO
C

Monterrey
Saltillo

Sig

sbe

e Esc arp

en

Gulf of Mexico
25
Key West
a rid F l oe y e s K

The pre-instrumental seismicity map (upper left) shows approximate locations of events based on macro-seismic reports and field investigations (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center database of significant earthquakes, 2010). These are earthquakes for which deaths were reported. Base map data sources include GEBCO 2008 shaded relief, Volcanoes of the World dataset (Siebert and Simkin, 2002), plate boundaries (Bird, 2003), and geographic information from Digital Chart of the World (1992) and ESRI (2002). Subduction slab contours are colored and labeled as to depth (Hayes and Wald, 2010).
REFERENCES Bird, Peter, 2003, An updated digital model of plate boundaries: Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, v. 4, no. 3, 52 p.

P es

25

ag

PA C I F I C O C E A N
20

Cla rion

Isla Clarin

B'
100

F.Z.

Isla Socorro

Popocatpetl
60
1908

Ixtaccihuatl

Cayo Norte Cayo Lobos

uc

Isla Roca Partida

1995

2003 1941 1973 1985

Cuernavaca

ta

Islas Revillagigedo (Mexico)

d
r

Culiacan
ro
Durango

ca

de

o
s

a
le

n
a

T
r
e

Tr

c
h

Sigsbee Deep Mexico Basin

ou

rp

gh

t
San Jose Canyon

Havana
Campeche Bank

Ulloa Knoll Mazatlan Basin

Isla Mara Madre Isla Mara Magdalena Isla Mara Cleofas

CUBA

Aguascalientes

San Luis Potosi

Tampico
Isla del la Juventud

DeMets, Charles, Gordon, R.G., Argus, D.F., and Stein, Seth, 1994, Effect of recent revisions to the geomagnetic reversal time scale on estimates of current plate motions: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 21, p. 21912194.
,

Islas Maras

Tres Marias Basin canyon Banderas

Merida

Digital Chart of the World, 1992: http://earth-info.nga.mil/publications/specs/printed/89009/89009_DCW.pdf, last accessed Mar. 9, 1996.
,

Guadalajara
Volcn de Colima
1932

Queretaro

Bay

of
Isla Cozumel

A' Morelia

C a m p e c h e

Isla Benedicto

1932

Paricutin

Toluca

Mexico City
Puebla Veracruz

Yu c a ta n Peninsula
B

Engdahl, E.R., and Villaseor, Antonio, 2002, Global seismicity: 19001999, in Lee, W.H.K., Kanamori, Hiroo, Jennings, P.C, and Kisslinger, Carl, eds., International Handbook of Earthquake and Engineering Seismology: San Diego, Calif., Academic Press, v. 81(A), Chap. 41, p. 665690. ESRI, 2002, ESRI data and maps: Redlands, Calif., ESRI. Available at http://www.esri.com/data/data-maps/index.html. GEBCO, 2008, The GEBCO_08_Grid, ver. 20091120, last accessed January 8, 2010 at http://www.gebco.net/.

20
a

si

n
Grand Cayman I.
Rid ge

Caym

Cay

man

E TR

NC

MAP EXPLANATION
a Tr o ugh

1985 1979

Villahermosa El Chichn
Turneffe Is. Gulf of Honduras Isla de Utila

Magnitude classes
45.9 66.4 6.56.9 77.4 7.5 Active volcanoes

MI

1911

C
BELIZE

AY M

AN

Giardini, D., Grnthal, G., Shedlock, K., Zhang, P., and Global Seismic Hazards Program, 1999, Global Seismic Hazards Map, last accessed January, 2007 at http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/GSHAP/. Hayes, Gavin, and Wald, David, 2010, Slab models for subduction zones: U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program, last accessed July 22, 2010 at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/data/slab/. NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, 2010, last accessed March 31, 2010 at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazards.

DD

LE

1907 1909

Acapulco
Tuxtla Gutierrez
1928 1928 1999 1928 1978 1931 1902

1911 1957

ezum

Mean slab depth

60 km 100 200 300 400 500 600

AM
F.Z . O ro z c o

ia Bah e la Isla de Guanaja d s Isla Isla de la Roatn

Moct

ER

IC

60

A
1917 1950

G U AT E M A L A

B'
1976

San Pedro Sula

Lightning Bank

15

7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 8.0 8.1 8.2

HONDURAS

15
Cayos Miskitos

Siebert, Lee, and Simkin, Thomas, 2002, Volcanoes of the worldAn illustrated catalog of Holocene volcanoes and their eruptions: Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program Digital Information series, GVP-3, last accessed January 9, 2007 at http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/. Tarr, A.C., Villaseor, Antonio, Furlong, K.P., Rhea, Susan, and Benz, H.M., 2010, Seismicity of the Earth 19002007: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3064, scale 1:25,000,000.

EAST

Plate boundaries
Subduction Transform Divergent Convergent Inferred

TR

1902 1942

Albatross Plateau

EN

100

EL

Tegucigalpa
SA LVA DO R
n a sec
2001

id

CH
G

NICARAGUA

I. Providencia (Colombia) I. San Andreas (Colombia) I. Del Mais Grande

PA C I

o olf

de

te

Fo

Managua
1992

Seismic Hazard and Relative Plate Motion

110 100 90

ISE FIC R

Depth of focus
069 km 70299 km 300700 km
Clipperto

de a go agu La car Ni

Teh a

pe n te

.Z. cF

n Ridge

1950

C O S TA R I C A

Clark Basin

Los Angeles San Diego 44

30

Phoenix

Dallas
El Paso

FIGURE EXPLANATION
Peak ground acceleration
00.2 m/s
New Orleans
30

San Jose
120 Universal Transverse Mercator Projection Digital map database and cartography by Susan Rhea and Art Tarr Manuscript approved for publication Nov. 16, 2011 110 105
Scale 1:8 000 000

UNITED STATES
Austin San Antonio

100

95

90

85

0.20.4 0.40.8 0.81.6 1.63.2 3.26.4

Houston

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800 Kilometers

Chihuahua
C

G ul

B -100

100

200

300

400

B'

f of

al if

Magnitude classes Depth of focus

45.9 66.4 6.56.9 77.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 8.0 8.1 8.2 069 km 70299 km 300700 km Nucleation points of M>8.3 events Active volcanoes

DEPTH PROFILE EXPLANATION

-100 0

Distance (km)
100 200 300 400 500 600 TRENCH AXIS 0 -100

46

or ni a

TRENCH AXIS

Earth structure
Air Crust Upper mantle Transition zone Lower mantle

Profiles of earthquake and volcano locations are constructed from the mapped data. Locations of the profile intersection with the surface are drawn in the map and labeled to coincide with the profile label. Box defines extent of earthquakes included in the profile. Length of the profile graphic is the same as in the map. Distance in kilometers from the trench axis is indicated in the X direction, depth in kilometers is indicated in the Y direction. There is no vertical exaggeration. See Explanation at side for color key. Not all earth layers, earthquake depths or magnitude, are visible on every profile.

A -200

-100

100 TRENCH AXIS

200

300

400

A'
This and other USGS information products are available at http://store.usgs.gov/. U.S. Geological Survey Box 25286, Denver Federal Center Denver, CO 80225 To learn about the USGS and its information products visit http://www.usgs.gov/. 1-888-ASK-USGS This report is available at: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1083/f For more information concerning this publication, contact: Center Director, USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center Box 25046, Mail Stop 966 Denver, CO 80225 (303) 273-8579 Or visit Geologic Hazards Science Center Web site at: http://geohazards.cr.usgs.gov/

MEXICO

6.49.8
Monterrey

47

NORTH AMERICA PLATE

Gulf of Mexico

Relative plate motion

11.019.9 mm/yr 20.039.9

-100
PA C I F I C O C E A N
Any use of trade, product or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also contains copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items for other than personal use must be secured from the copyright owner.

Depth (km)

-200 -300 -400 -500 -600 -700 -800

40.059.9
58 73 44
Toluca

17
Guadalajara Merida

-100

-200
20

60.079.9
20

PROFILE A
-200

PROFILE B
-300

Mexico City
Puebla

80.0100.0

PROFILE X
-300

Plate boundaries

PACIFIC PLATE
-400

BELIZE

Subduction Transform Divergent

Suggested citation: Benz, H.M., Dart, R.L., Villaseor, Antonio, Hayes, G.P., Tarr, A.C., Furlong, K.P., and Rhea, Susan, 2011, Seismicity of the Earth 19002010 Mexico and vicinity: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 20101083-F, scale 1:8,000,000.

RIVERA MICROPLATE

59

GUATEMALA HONDURAS Guatemala City

90

COCOS PLATE
110 100

Tegucigalpa

Convergent Inferred