The Oca-Ancón Fault System ( es, Falla Oca-Ancón) is a complex of geological faults located in northeastern

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and northwestern

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

near the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

. The fault system is of right-lateral

strike-slip In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

type and extends for an approximate length of .Paris et al., 2000, p.9Audemard et al., 1996a The Oca-Ancón Fault System is part of the diffuse 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

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 ...

.Audemard et al., 1996b The movement rate of the Oca-Ancón Fault System is estimated at each year, more than most Venezuelan faults.Audemard et al, 2006

Oca Fault segment

The vertical to subvertical Oca Fault segment in the western part of the fault system has a length of , running west–east through La Guajira, Colombia. It forms the northern boundary of the

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (English: ''Snow-Covered Mountain Range of Saint Martha'') is an isolated mountain range in northern Colombia, separate from the Andes range that runs through the north of the country. Reaching an elevation of ...

and cuts through the

Serranía del Perijá The Serranía del Perijá, Cordillera de Perijá or Sierra de Perijá is a mountain range, an extension of the eastern Andean branch ( Cordillera Oriental), in northern South America, between Colombia and Venezuela Venezuela (; ), offici ...

continuing into Venezuela. The fault segment with a slip rate of per year has been active since the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of ...

(~15,000 years ago) and its most recent activity has been registered in

1834 Events January–March * January – The Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad is chartered in Wilmington, North Carolina. * January 1 – Zollverein (Germany): Customs charges are abolished at borders within its member states. * January 3 � ...

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Oca-Ancon Fault System Seismic faults of Colombia Seismic faults of Venezuela Strike-slip faults Active faults Faults Faults Faults Venezuelan Coastal Range Colombia–Venezuela border