The San Ramón ( es, Falla de San Ramón) is a
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 ...
an
geological fault, located in eastern
Santiago Metropolitan Region
Santiago Metropolitan Region ( es, link=no, Región Metropolitana de Santiago) is one of Chile's 16 first-order administrative divisions. It is the country's only landlocked administrative region and contains the nation's capital, Santiago. Mos ...
, passing through the eastern part of
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, whos ...
marking the boundary between the
Chilean Central Valley
The Central Valley ( es, Valle Central), Intermediate Depression, or Longitudinal Valley is the depression between the Chilean Coastal Range and the Andes Mountains. The Chilean Central Valley extends from the border with Peru to Puerto Montt in ...
and the
Andes
The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...
.
As an active
thrust fault
A thrust fault is a break in the Earth's crust, across which older rocks are pushed above younger rocks.
Thrust geometry and nomenclature
Reverse faults
A thrust fault is a type of reverse fault that has a dip of 45 degrees or less.
If ...
it constitutes a seismic hazard zone for the densely populated Santiago. A large number of homes and educational centers have been built on or near the fault, along with a gas plant in Peñalolén. The Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission has a reactor in La Reina, very close to the fault, which has raised concerns among the population. It runs 5 kilometers underground and extends for 25 kilometers in a north–south direction, lying between the
Mapocho River
The River Mapocho ( es, Río Mapocho) ( Mapudungun: ''Mapu chuco'', "water that penetrates the land") is a river in Chile. It flows from its source in the Andes mountains onto the west and divides Chile's capital Santiago in two.
Course
The Mapo ...
and
Maipo River. It is known to pass underneath the
communes
An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, relig ...
of
Vitacura
Vitacura is a commune of Chile located in Santiago Province, Santiago Metropolitan Region. It is one of the most expensive and fashionable areas of Santiago. Inhabitants are primarily high income families. It belongs to the Northeastern zone o ...
,
Las Condes,
La Reina
La Reina ( Spanish: "The Queen") is a commune of Chile located in Santiago Province, Santiago Metropolitan Region created in 1963 from an eastern portion of the Ñuñoa commune. It belongs to the Northeastern zone of Santiago de Chile.
La Re ...
,
Peñalolén
Peñalolén (Mapudungun "fraternal meeting place") is a Chilean commune in Santiago Province, Santiago Metropolitan Region. It was founded on November 15, 1984.
History
The commune was founded on November 15, 1984.
Drug arrests
During 2019, Ch ...
,
La Florida and
Puente Alto Puente, a word meaning ''bridge'' in Spanish language, may refer to:
People
* Puente (surname)
Places
*La Puente, California, USA
* Puente Alto, city and commune of Chile
*Puente de Ixtla, city in Mexico
*Puente Genil, village in the Spanish provi ...
, and suspected to continue into
Lo Barnechea and
Pirque
Pirque () is a commune of Chile in Cordillera Province, Santiago Metropolitan Region; it is located 2.8 kilometers southeast of Puente Alto and 21.3 kilometers south-southeast of the center of Santiago. It is situated at the base of the Cajón de ...
at its extremes. Due to its shallowness, it can cause very destructive superficial earthquakes with a magnitude around 7 on the
Richter scale
The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 ...
, with a general recurrence period of over 300 years.
Geological behavior
The San Ramón is a thrust fault with vertical slippage which has caused the formation of the Sierra de Ramón, a 25 kilometer long mountain chain with a maximum height of 3249 meters above sea level. This range has moved noticeably in the last 10 million years, and grown notably during the recent
Quaternary period, which makes it a geologically active fault. It shows traces of deformation on the order of 0,02 mm/year, making it capable of producing significant earthquakes, such as in
1575 and
1647
Events
January–March
* January 2 – Chinese bandit leader Zhang Xianzhong, who has ruled the Sichuan province since 1644, is killed at Xichong by a Qing archer after having been betrayed one of his officers, Liu Jinzhong.
...
.
The fault represents a discontinuity in the rocky
subsoil which modifies its characteristics by fragmenting the rock, generating fault ruptures, dislocation and fracturing of blocks in the immediate surroundings, and even generating
hot spring
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by c ...
s which chemically alter the rock.
See also
*
El Arrayán Fault
References
Geology of Santiago Metropolitan Region
Seismic faults of Chile
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