Earthquakes are relatively frequent occurrences in

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

. The country lies in a major fault zone known as the

Motagua The Motagua River () is a river in Guatemala. It rises in the western highlands of Guatemala where it is also called Río Grande, and runs in an easterly direction to the Gulf of Honduras. The final few kilometres of the river form part of the ...

and Chixoy-Polochic fault complex, which cuts across Guatemala and forms the tectonic boundary between the

Caribbean Plate The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean Plate borders ...

and the

North American Plate The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. With an area of , it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacific ...

. In addition, along Guatemala's western coast line, the

Cocos plate The Cocos Plate is a young oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it. The Cocos Plate was created approximately 23 million years ago when the Farallon Plate ...

pushes against the Caribbean Plate, forming a

subduction zone 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 ...

known as the Middle America Trench located approximately 50 km off Guatemala's Pacific coast. This subduction zone led to the formation of the

Central America Volcanic Arc The Central American Volcanic Arc (often abbreviated to CAVA) is a chain of volcanoes which extends parallel to the Pacific coastline of the Central American Isthmus, from Mexico to Panama. This volcanic arc, which has a length of 1,100 kilometer ...

, and is an important source of offshore earthquakes. Both these major

tectonic Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents k ...

processes have generated deformations within the Caribbean plate and produced secondary fault zones, like the

Mixco Mixco () is a city and municipality in the Guatemala department of Guatemala. It is next to the main Guatemala City municipality and has become part of the Guatemala City Metropolitan Area. Most of Mixco is separated from the city by canyons, fo ...

Jalpatagua Jalpatagua () is a town and municipality in the Jutiapa department Jutiapa Department is a department of Guatemala that borders along El Salvador and the Pacific Ocean. The capital is the city of Jutiapa. As of 2018, it has a population of ...

, and

Santa Catarina Pinula fault Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnight ...

s. The most destructive earthquake in recent Guatemalan history was the 1976 quake with a magnitude of 7.5 M_w and a

hypocenter In seismology, a hypocenter or hypocentre () is the point of origin of an earthquake or a subsurface nuclear explosion. A synonym is the focus of an earthquake. Earthquakes An earthquake's hypocenter is the position where the strain energy s ...

depth of just 5 km. This

shallow-focus earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

, originating from the Motagua Fault, caused 23,000 fatalities, leaving 76,000 injured and causing widespread material damage. Surprisingly, the 7.9 M_w earthquake of 1942, though higher in magnitude, was much less destructive, in part because of its substantially deeper hypocenter depth of 60 km. A number of earthquakes with low magnitudes caused major damage in very localized areas, which may in part be explained by their relatively shallow depth. This was the case with the 1985 Uspantán earthquake of 5.0 M_w with a depth of 5 km, which destroyed most buildings in the town of

Uspantán Uspantán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. It is one of the largest municipalities of El Quiché and stretches from the mountainous highlands in the South to the tropical lowlands in the North. The municipal seat is ...

, but caused little or no damage in the rest of the country.

Earthquakes

Guatemala is in constant earthquake activity. However, there are some earthquakes that are more notable due to the damage they've caused. Notable earthquakes in recent Guatemalan history include the following: MM = Intensity on the

Modified Mercalli intensity scale The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...

References

Sources

* * * * * * *
Seismic data of Guatemala
Retrieved on July 28, 2008
details on Historic Earthquakes in Guatemala
Retrieved on July 28, 2008.

External links

Instituto Nacional de Sismología, Vulcanología, Meteorología e Hidrolagía (INSIVUMEH)Guatemala
- Earthquake information by Earthquake Engineering Research Institute {{DEFAULTSORT:Earthquakes In Guatemala

Lists of events in Guatemala

Earthquakes

See also

References

Sources

External links