The 2007 Tocopilla earthquake occurred on November 14 at . Its

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

was located between

Quillagua Quillagua is an oasis in the Tocopilla Province, in the Antofagasta Region of northern Chile. It is a part of the commune of María Elena. The Loa River is crossed by the Pan-American Highway in this area. According to the ''Dirección Meteorol� ...

and

Tocopilla Tocopilla is a city and commune in the Antofagasta Region, in the north of Chile. It is the capital of the province that bears the same name. Every year Tocopilla celebrates its anniversary on 29 September with a big show the day before, which ...

, affecting the

Tarapacá San Lorenzo de Tarapacá, also known simply as Tarapacá, is a town in the region of the same name in Chile. History The town has likely been inhabited since the 12th century, when it formed part of the Inca trail. When Spanish explorer Diego ...

and the

Antofagasta Antofagasta () is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2015 census, the city has a population of 402,669. After the Spanish American wars ...

regions in northern

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. The earthquake had a

moment magnitude The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...

of 7.7 and lasted about 3 minutes and 35 seconds. Seventeen

aftershock In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in the same area of the main shock, caused as the displaced crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthquakes can have hundreds to thousand ...

s of magnitude greater than 5.3, including one of magnitude 7.1 and two others of magnitude 6.3 or higher, were recorded. The

Pacific Tsunami Warning Center The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) is one of two tsunami warning centers that are operated by NOAA in the United States. Headquartered on Ford Island, HI, the PTWC is part of an international tsunami warning system (TWS) program and s ...

issued a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...

warning, stating a tsunami had been generated; after one hour, this warning was cancelled. The earthquake was felt from

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

, 1,245 km south from the

, to

La Paz La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities ...

, about 700 km north-northeast.Strong earthquake shakes northern Chile, kills at least two
AFP news report

Tectonic summary

The

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

reported that the earthquake resulted from the release of stresses generated by the subduction of the oceanic Nazca plate beneath the

South American Plate The South American Plate is a major tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America as well as a sizable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the African Plate, with which it forms the southern part of the Mid-A ...

. In this region, known as the Peru-Chile

subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

zone, the Nazca Plate thrusts beneath South America at a rate of approximately 79 mm/year in an east-north-east direction. This earthquake indicates subduction-related

thrusting Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that sys ...

, likely on the interface between these two plates. This earthquake occurred near (and within) the southern end of the rupture area of the great magnitude 9.1 earthquake of 1877, which produced a destructive tsunami and whose source region has since the late 1970s been recognized as a potentially dangerous

seismic gap A seismic gap is a segment of an active fault known to produce significant earthquakes that has not slipped in an unusually long time, compared with other segments along the same structure. There is a hypothesis or theory that states that over long ...

. In 1995, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake occurred in the same subduction zone approximately 200 km further south of the November 14th event.

Damage and casualties

At least two deaths have been attributed to this earthquake: an 88-year-old woman crushed under a collapsing wall at

, and a 54-year-old woman whose exact cause of death remains unknown. There were also reports of widespread power outages in the region, including the cities of

, Calama and

Arica Arica ( ; ) is a Communes of Chile, commune and a port city with a population of 222,619 in the Arica Province of northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. It is Chile's northernmost city, being located only south of the border with Peru. The ...

. The earthquake disrupted

copper mining Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtain copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of physical and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ore source, loca ...

in the region; because Chile is the world's top supplier of copper, the earthquake caused prices of the metal to jump by more than six percent.

Tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

prices also rose four percent to reach a record high. There were reports of several dozen road workers trapped inside a collapsed highway tunnel.Workers trapped in tunnel collapse after quakes
, Radio New Zealand News Two hundred homes were destroyed by the shaking and up to 15,000 people were displaced. In Tocopilla alone, 1,000 homes were demolished, representing 30 percent of all standing structures.Chile rattled by big aftershocks
BBC News

References

External links

Oficina Nacional de Emergencia
* {{DEFAULTSORT:2007 Antofagasta Earthquake Antofagasta earthquake Earthquakes in Chile

History of Antofagasta Region

November 2007 events in South America

Tectonic summary

Damage and casualties

See also

References

External links