U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR OPEN-FILE REPORT 20151031-E

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY This report supplements Open-File Report 20101083-E
80W 70W 60W 50W
PRE-INSTRUMENTAL SEISMICITY 1500 1899
Seismicity of the Earth 19002013 HONDURAS
SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
SAINT LUCIA BARBADOS
Deaths, tsunami, MMI VIII+, or M 8
M 8.5 labeled with year
Seismotectonics of South America (Nazca Plate Region) ARUBA CURAAO GRENADA
A A'
80W 60W 40W
1900
Compiled by Gavin P. Hayes,1 Gregory M. Smoczyk,1 Harley M. Benz,1 Antonio Villaseor,2 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200
CURAAO
BARBADOS

NICARAGUA Barranquilla Maracaibo Caracas HONDURAS GRENADA

and Kevin P. Furlong3 Managua Cartagena
Valencia Maracay Deme
rara P TRENCH AXIS
NICARAGUA
2014 rk Basin Barquisimeto lain 0
1992
1950 Cla 10 COSTA RICA
1 PANAMA VENEZUELA
U.S. Geological Survey GUYANA
2
Institute of Earth Sciences, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas, (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain COSTA RICA Panama FRENCH
3
Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa., USA San Jose
1983 PANAMA
Cucuta VE N E Z UE L A COLOMBIA
SURINAME GUIANA

10N 200
Bucaramanga
TECTONIC SUMMARY 1934

Medellin GUY AN A Equator

The South American arc extends over 7,000 kilometers (km), from the Chilean margin triple junction offshore of southern Chile, to r
Equato ECUADOR
its intersection with the Panama fracture zone, offshore of the southern coast of Panama in Central America. It marks the plate

e
400
FRENCH

idg
Manizales
boundary between the subducting Nazca plate and the South America plate, where the oceanic crust and lithosphere of the Nazca Bogota

sR
Ibague S UR I N AME GUI AN A PROFILE A

co
plate begin their descent into the mantle beneath South America. The convergence associated with this subduction process is

Co
responsible for the uplift of the Andes Mountains, and for the active volcanic chain present along much of this deformation front. 1619
Relative to a fixed South America plate, the Nazca plate moves slightly north of eastwards at a rate varying from approximately 80
Cali COL OMBIA 600 PERU
BRAZIL
millimeters/year (mm/yr) in the south, to approximately 65 mm/yr in the north. Although the rate of subduction varies little along
the entire arc, there are complex changes in the geologic processes along the subduction zone that dramatically influence volcanic 1687 1716
activity, crustal deformation, earthquake generation and occurrence all along the western edge of South America. 1979
1586
1906 1958 1513
1868 BOLIVIA
Most of the large earthquakes in South America are constrained to shallow depths of 070 km as a result of both crustal and A Equator
1942 1877
interplate deformation. Crustal earthquakes are caused by deformation and mountain building in the overriding South America plate Quito 1604
and generate earthquakes as deep as approximately 50 km. Interplate earthquakes occur due to slip along the dipping interface 1970 A' Belem
between the Nazca and the South America plates. Interplate earthquakes in this region are frequent and often large, and occur 20S
PARAGUAY
between depths of approximately 1060 km. Since 1900, numerous magnitude (M) 8 or larger earthquakes have occurred on this Equator ECUADOR Manaus B B' 20S Chile
Sao Luis
subduction zone interface that were followed by devastating tsunamis, including the 1960 M9.5 earthquake in southern Chile, the Guayaquil 1906 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200
1819
largest instrumentally recorded earthquake in the world. Other notable shallow tsunami-generating earthquakes include the 1906 1921 TRENCH AXIS
M8.5 earthquake near Esmeraldas, Ecuador, the 1922 M8.5 earthquake near Coquimbo, Chile, the 2001 M8.4 Arequipa, Peru 1953 0
earthquake, the 2007 M8.0 earthquake near Pisco, Peru, and the 2010 M8.8 Maule, Chile earthquake located just north of the 1960
event. 1730 1822
2005 URUGUAY
Piura
Large intermediate-depth earthquakes (those occurring between depths of approximately 70 and 300 km) are relatively limited in 90W 200 ARGENTINA
size and spatial extent in South America, and occur within the Nazca plate as a result of internal deformation within the subducting 1751
plate. These earthquakes generally cluster beneath northern Chile and southwestern Bolivia, and to a lesser extent beneath northern 1960
Chiclayo
Peru and southern Ecuador, with depths from 110 to 130 km. Most of these earthquakes occur adjacent to the bend in the coastline B' 1575
between Peru and Chile. The most recent large intermediate-depth earthquake in this region was the 2005 M7.8 Tarapaca, Chile, 400

PE
Trujillo 1963
1837
earthquake. PROFILE B

RU
1970 PE RU 40S

-C
40S

HI
Earthquakes can also be generated to depths greater than 600 km as a result of continued internal deformation of the subducting 1996
1947

LE
Nazca plate. Deep-focus earthquakes in South America are not observed from a depth range of approximately 300500 km. Instead, 600
1966
BRAZIL

TR
deep earthquakes in this region occur at depths of 500650 km and are concentrated into two zones: one that runs beneath the 1940 FALKLAND ISLANDS

EN
Peru-Brazil border and another that extends from central Bolivia to central Argentina. These earthquakes generally do not exhibit (ISLAS MALVINAS)
MAP EXPLANATION

CH
large magnitudes. An exception to this was the 1994 Bolivian earthquake in northwestern Bolivia. This M8.2 earthquake occurred Callao 1974
Magnitude
10S Lima 800
at a depth of 631 km, which was until recently was the largest deep-focus earthquake instrumentally recorded (superseded in May 8.0
1963 1994
2013 by a M8.3 earthquake 610 km beneath the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia), and was felt widely throughout South and North America. 2007 Cuzco
1837
8.5
1908
Subduction of the Nazca plate is geometrically complex and influences the geology and seismicity of the western edge of South
1996 100W 80W 60W 40W 20W
America. The intermediate-depth regions of the subducting Nazca plate can be segmented into five sections based on their angle of Peru Cuiaba
Bas 1942
subduction beneath the South America plate. Three segments are characterized by steeply dipping subduction; the other two by in 1960 Brasilia 0 200 400 600 800 1,000
near-horizontal subduction. The Nazca plate beneath northern Ecuador, southern Peru to northern Chile, and southern Chile 2001 1922 La Paz MILES
B Arequipa Goiania 0 200 400 600 800 1,000
descend into the mantle at angles of 25 to 30. In contrast, the slab beneath southern Ecuador to central Peru, and under central 1913 Cochabamba
BOL IVIA KILOMETERS
Chile, is subducting at a shallow angle of approximately 10 or less. In these regions of flat-slab subduction, the Nazca plate 2001
Santa Cruz de La Sierra
moves horizontally for several hundred kilometers before continuing its descent into the mantle, and is shadowed by an extended
zone of crustal seismicity in the overlying South America plate. Although the South America plate exhibits a chain of active
volcanism resulting from the subduction and partial melting of the Nazca oceanic lithosphere along most of the arc, these regions of
inferred shallow subduction correlate with an absence of volcanic activity. 2005 SEISMIC HAZARD AND RELATIVE PLATE MOTION
The tectonics of the Antarctica triple junction in southern Chile (Chile triple junction), are controlled by the interactions of the Pacific Ocean 1959 1976 Campo Grande Belo Horizonte
20S
100W
CAYMAN ISLANDS
80W
HAITI DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
60W 40W
FIGURE EXPLANATION
Antarctica, South America, and Scotia plates. Immediately south of the Chile triple junction, the Antarctica plate subducts beneath

PERU-CHILE TRENCH
JAMAICA VIRGIN 10% in 50 year peak ground
South America at a rate of approximately 16 mm/yr. There have been no moderate-to-large earthquakes associated with this sin CHIL2007E 20N BELIZE
ISLANDS, U.S. acceleration
Ba PARAGUAY 20N
GUADELOUPE
convergence over the past century. Moving south and east through Patagonia, plate motions between the South America and the e MEXICO CARIBBEAN PLATE 00.2 m/s2
il GUATEMALA

ge
HONDURAS SAINT LUCIA
Scotia plates are predominantly left-lateral, at rates of 510 mm/yr. This plate boundary hosted two M7.8 earthquakes in December Ch CURAAO 0.20.4

Rid
1995 BARBADOS
Rio de Janeiro EL SALVADOR NICARAGUA
20S 1950 0.40.8
1949, near the Chile-Argentina border in Tierra del Fuego. Farther south, the Antarctica plate moves towards the east with respect Niteroi

ca
0.81.6
Naz Sao Paulo TRINIDAD AND
to the Scotia plate at rates of less than 10 mm/yr, decreasing towards the south. Several M66.5 earthquakes have been observed in PANAMA
TOBAGO 1.63.2
1987 Santos
the Drake Passage region over the past half-century, all with left-lateral strike-slip faulting mechanisms. Salta VENEZUELA 3.26.4

Asuncion GUYANA 6.49.8

1966 Curitiba COCOS PLATE FRENCH
DATA SOURCES C C' 65 mm/yr
COLOMBIA SURINAME GUIANA
Relative plate motion
200 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 58 mm/yr 720 mm/yr

The earthquakes portrayed on the main map and the depth profiles are taken from two sources: (a) the Centennial earthquake 1983
TRENCH AXIS San Miguel De Tucuman 2140

catalog (Engdahl and Villaseor, 2002) and annual supplements for the interval 19002007, where the magnitude floor is 5.5 C C' r ECUADOR
1918 Santos Equato 4160
globally, and (b) a catalog of earthquakes having high-quality depth determinations for the period 19642002 and a magnitude Equat
Ridge Plateau or
omez
range of 5.05.4 (Engdahl, written commun., 2003) 0 6180
yG 1922
Sala SOUTH AMERICA
1918
81110
The nucleation points of great earthquakes larger than M8.3 are designated with a label showing the year of occurrence. Their 65 mm/yr PLATE
rupture areas are shown as light gray polygons. Major earthquakes (M7.58.2) are labeled with the year of occurrence, whereas Porto Alegre
PERU
Plate boundaries
200
earthquakes (M8.08.2) are labeled with the year of occurrence and also denoted by a white outline (Tarr and others, 2010). Subduction
1943 BRAZIL
1977 30S Transform
Cordoba
The Seismic Hazard and Relative Plate Motion panel displays the generalized seismic hazard of the region (Giardini and others, Santa Fe Divergent

1999) and representative relative plate motion vectors using the NUVEL-1A model (DeMets and others, 1994.) PROFILE C Others
400
1971 71 mm/yr
Rosario BOLIVIA
Pre-instrumental seismicity was obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Geophysi- 1906 1985 URUGUAY
Valparaiso
cal Data Center (2010) database of significant earthquakes; locations are approximate, based on macro-seismic reports and field -30 Santiago
40W
investigations. We selected earthquakes with associated reports of moderate to major damage, deaths, estimated magnitude of VIII 600
Buenos Aires
or greater (if known), Modified Mercalli Intensities VIII or greater, or tsunami generation. Base map data sources include GEBCO La Plata Montevideo
1928
NAZCA PLATE PARAGUAY
2008, Volcanoes of the World dataset (Siebert and Simkin, 2002), plate boundaries (Bird, 2003), Digital Chart of the World (1992), 1914 20S 20S
and Esri (2002). Slab contours are from Hayes and others (2012). ARGENTINA
Atlantic Ocean
73 mm/yr
2010 1939

REFERENCES Concepcion
1953
Bird, Peter, 2003, An updated digital model of plate boundaries: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, v. 4, no. 3, 52 p., doi: 1960
10.1029/2001GC000252. D
1962 1975
MAP EXPLANATION URUGUAY
1960 ARGENTINA
DeMets, Charles, Gordon, R.G., Argus, D.F., and Stein, Seth, 1994, Effects of recent revisions to the geomagnetic reversal time scale D' CHILE
on estimates of current plate motions: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 21, no. 20, p. 21912194. 1960
Digital Chart of the World, 1992: http://earth-info.nga.mil/publications/specs/printed/89009/89009_DCW.pdf, last accessed Magnitude classes 1960
Nucleation points and 74 mm/yr
March 9, 1996. 5.55.7
year of occurrence
Engdahl, E.R., and Villaseor, Antonio, 2002, Global seismicity 19001999, in Lee, W.H.K., Kanamori, Hiroo, Jennings, P.C., and 5.76.0
Kisslinger, Carl, eds., International Handbook of Earthquake and Engineering Seismology: International Association for Active volcanoes 40S
6.06.3 51 mm/yr
Earthquake Engineering, v. 81(A), chap. 41, p. 126.
Esri, 2002, Esri data and maps: Redlands, Calif., Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri). [Also available at 6.36.6 Mean slab depth
http://www.esri.com/data/data-maps/index.html.] Arabian 60 km
40S 40S
6.66.9
GEBCO, 2008, The EBCO_08_Grid, ver. 20091120: UNESCO, General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans, UNESCO, accessed Jan. 8, Basin 100
2010 at http:/www.gebco.net/. 40S
6.97.1 200
Giardini, Domenico, Grnthal, Gottfried, Shedlock, K.M., Zhang, Peizhen, and Global Seismic Hazards Program, 1999: Global 300 FALKLAND ISLANDS
100W 7.17.4 400 (ISLAS MALVINAS)
seismic hazards map, accessed February 18, 2014, at http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/static/GSHAP/. 500
Hayes, G.P., Wald, D.J, and Johnson, R.L., 2012, Slab 1.0A three-dimensional model of global subduction zone geometrics: Journal 7.47.7 600
of Geophysical Research, v. 117, doi: 10.1029/2011JB008524. 7.78.0 Plate boundaries ANTARCTIC PLATE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2010, National Geophysical data center: National Oceanic and SCOTIA PLATE
Greater than Subduction
Atmopheric Administration, accessed March 31, 2010, at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/hazards.shtml. 8.0 Transform
Siebert, Lee, and Simkin, Thomas, 2002, Volcanoes of the worldAn illustrated catalog of Holocene volcanoes and their eruptions: Chile Triple Junction Divergent
120W 100W 80W 60W 40W 20W
Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism, Program Digital Information series, GVP3, last accessed Jan. 9, 2007, at D D' Depth of focus Inferred 0 200 400 600 800 1,000
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/. 200 0 200 400 600 !
( Less than 69 km MILES
Country
Tarr, A.C., Villaseor, Antonio, Furlong, K.P., Rhea, Susan, and Benz, H.M., 2010, Seismicity of the Earth 19002007: U.S. !
( 70299 km Boundary 0 200 400 600 800 1,000
Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3064, scale 1:25,000,000. [Available at http://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/3064/.] TRENCH AXIS
KILOMETERS
!
( Greater than 300 km 1911 8.0-8.2 Magnitude
earthquake location
0
FALKLAND ISLANDS Aftershock zones*
1935 7.5-8.2 Magnitude
(ISLAS MALVINAS) Falkand earthquake location
Rupture zones* 50S
Plateau
DEPTH PROFILE EXPLANATION Distance (km) *Aftershock zones for large earthquakes represent the area over
X X' 200 which significant aftershock activity was observed in the immediate
Magnitude classes 200 0 200 400 vicinity of the main shock, within tectonic environments coupled to This and other USGS information products are available at Publishing support provided by:
Depth of focus Profiles of earthquake and volcano locations PROFILE D the main shock system. For example, for the 2011 M 9.0 Tohoku http://store.usgs.gov/ Denver Publishing Service Center
Less than 6.0
6.06.5 !
( Less than 69 km are constructed from the mapped data. 1949 earthquake, extensive aftershocks occurred on the interplate thrust U.S. Geological Survey
Manuscript approved for publication February 11, 2015
Tierra del Fuego contact between the Pacific and North America plates, as well as in Box 25286, Denver Federal Center
6.57.0 !
( 70299 km Locations of the profile intersection with the TRENCH AXIS the overlying upper plate, and on faults within the Pacific plate Denver, CO 80225 Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive
7.07.5 !
( Greater than 300 km surface are drawn in the map and labeled to 400 -50
e outboard of the subduction zone. We do not include more distant purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S.
0 g
7.5 coincide with the profile label. Box defines
s sa triggered aftershocks such as those that occurred on upper plate To learn about the USGS and its information products visit Government.
7.6
>
! Nucleation point extent of earthquakes included in the profile.
Length of the profile graphic is the same as ak
e Pa faults within mainland Japan. http://www.usgs.gov/. Although this information product, for the most part, is in
7.7 Dr 1-888-ASK-USGS the public domain, it also contains copyrighted materials as
Depth (km)

Active volcanoes in the map. Distance in kilometers from the noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted
7.8 This report is available at:
trench axis is indicated in the Y direction. 100W 90W 80W 70W 60W 50W 40W MAP LOCATION http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2015/1031/e items must be secured from the copyright owner.
Earth structure There is no vertical exaggeration. See South America Albers Equal Area Projection Scale 1:14,000,000
7.9 200 Suggested citation:
Air explanation at side for color key. Not all Digital map database and cartography by Greg Smoczyk For more information concerning this publication, contact:
8.0 Crust Earth layers and earthquake depths or SCALE 1:14,000,000 Center Director, USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center Hayes, G.P., Smoczyk, G.M., Benz, H.M., Villaseor, Antonio,
Box 25046, Mail Stop 966 and Furlong, K.P., 2015, Seismicity of the Earth 19002013,
Upper mantle magnitude are visible on every profile. Seismotectonics of South America (Nazca Plate Region):
8.1
Transition zone 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 Denver, CO 80225
Lower mantle
PROFILE X MILES (303) 273-8579 U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 20151031-E, 1 sheet,
scale 1:14,000,000 http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/of20151031E.
Greater then 400
or equal to 8.2
Or visit Geologic Hazards Science Center Web site at:
0 200 400 600 800 1,000 http://geohazards.cr.usgs.gov/ ISSN 2331-1258 (online)
KILOMETERS http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/of20141031E