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Caribbean could face more deadly earthquakes

If you thought the earthquake devastating Haiti was a rare occurence, think again. Earthquake specialists are now saying the Caribbean region could suffer from similar or stronger earthquakes in the near future.

As the New Scientist reports, “not all the energy that has built up in the faults running through the Caribbean region was released in this week’s tragedy.”

The report cites evidence from several earthquake experts who believe “stress transfer” along the affected fault segment is likely to trigger a chain of quakes. Uri ten Brink, an expert on earthquakes in the region from the US Geological Survey in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is reported as saying: “Last time round there was a sequence of earthquakes,” referring to Haiti being struck by earthquakes in 1751 and 1770, when three large earthquakes occurred within the space of 20 years. “I’m worried, as we might expect the eastern side of the fault to rupture next.”

Also, satellite measurements reveal that the Caribbean plate is moving east over the Atlantic plate at a rate of two centimetres per year. “Measurements over several decades show that the sum of all earthquakes that strike on ‘splinter faults’ on the Caribbean plate, like Tuesday’s, have accounted for around half of the energy associated with this movement, leaving the other half stored up in the system.”

From the amount of energy being accumulated by subduction, earthquake experts estimate that undersea thrust earthquakes could recur every 2,000 years or so.

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