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Structural geology

Invisible faults under shaky ground

Nature Geoscience volume 3, pages 743–745 (2010)Cite this article

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The Haiti earthquake ruptured one or more buried faults, generated tsunamis and caused extensive structural damage in Port-au-Prince. Investigations in the epicentral region quantify seismic hazards but offer no clear views of Haiti's seismic future.

Transform faults are only efficient in accommodating the relative sliding motion of plates when the fault parallels the direction of plate motion. With only a slight misorientation, any motion can fragment and distort the nearby plate interiors. The Enriquillo–Plantain Garden transform fault does not perfectly parallel the direction of plate motion, causing compression throughout much of southern Haiti1. This convergence is accommodated by the development of folds and thrust faults that ultimately cause the upward displacement of rock. These vertical movements of the crust are responsible for the formation of the islands of the northern Caribbean5,6.

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Figure 1: The valley of the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault viewed from the west.

ROGER BILHAM

Figure 2: Schematic models for subsurface slip in the Haiti earthquake.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Roger Bilham is at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0399, USA. bilham@colorado.edu,

    Roger Bilham

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  1. Roger Bilham
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Bilham, R. Invisible faults under shaky ground. Nature Geosci 3, 743–745 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1000

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