SRL Early Edition

100 Years of Nonsolicitude

To say the Caribbean has been a turbulent place throughout pean powers (who were primarily concerned with resource ex-
the entire course of its geologic and human history would be an traction), as well as variably successful independence movements,
understatement. If by nonsolicitude we mean varying degrees continued through the nineteenth century. The last significant
of exploitation and neglect during the human era, the region change was the transfer of Puerto Rico to the United States after
definitely qualifies. the Spanish–American War of 1898.
Let us start with the very distant past, about 200 Ma, when Puerto Rico is now famous for having its infrastructure,
Africa and North and South America were all more or less both physical and social, devastated by Hurricane Maria (also
stuck together and constituted western Pangea. By about less severely by Irma three weeks earlier; see Fig. 1). According
150 Ma, the glue was disintegrating: the Atlantic was opening to polls, half or more of the United States public was unaware
up, the Farallon plate was subducting from the west, and a sea- that the island’s inhabitants are American citizens. Before my
way opened up as North and South America began to separate. first trip to the island as a United States government employee,
Then, a piece of oceanic crust apparently invaded this space I was reminded by our travel office to make sure my govern-
from the southwest, pushing an island arc toward North ment passport was in order. I hope we know better now.
America. In the early Tertiary, about 50 Ma, the arc collided As geoscientists, we know that hurricanes are not the only
with North America, and the Caribbean plate, having no rea- natural hazard facing the Caribbean. Plate motions on the
son to slow down, rotated clockwise and pushed out into the order of 2–3 cm=yr mean that the region is hit regularly by
Atlantic (or more accurately, the North American plate, head- earthquakes and tsunamis. Notable examples are the 1843
ing west, pushed past it). This rotation left the main piece of M w ∼ 8:4 Guadeloupe event, which killed about 1500 people
the arc (now Cuba) stuck to North America, and strung (or about a third of the island’s inhabitants), and the 1792 Port
smaller chunks of it out toward the east (now Hispaniola, Royal, Jamaica earthquake, which resulted in the deaths of more
Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands). than half the original population of about
Although many details are left out of 6500. And of course, the 2010 Haiti event,
this quick summary, I believe this picture 11 October 2018 will mark with casualty estimates ranging from
is generally agreed upon. I remember the 100th anniversary of the around 100,000 to more than 300,000.
watching Jim Pindell (current director Mw 7.3 Mona Canyon This brings us to the title of this
of Tectonic Analysis Inc.), who has spent earthquake, the most recent opinion piece: 11 October 2018 will mark
a career unraveling the plate tectonic destructive earthquake to the 100th anniversary of the M w 7.3
history of the Caribbean (e.g., Pindell affect Puerto Rico. Mona Canyon earthquake, the most re-
and Kennan, 2009), tell the story in a cent destructive earthquake to affect Pu-
45-min presentation in Santo Domingo, erto Rico. This shallow event resulted
Dominican Republic. It seemed like science fiction, but it all fit from about 5 mm=yr of east–west extension between Hispan-
neatly together. In my mind, the only other locations on earth iola and the Puerto Rico microplate (Calais et al., 2002).
as complex are the Indonesian archipelago and possibly the Ground shaking and a tsunami caused about 45 deaths and
eastern Mediterranean. If not for Venezuelan petroleum, we about $63 million in damage in today’s dollars, mostly to
would know far less about Caribbean tectonic history. towns in the western part of the island. At the time, Puerto
Moving on to human history, we all know the Columbus Rico had been under United States military jurisdiction for
story, and subsequent colonization of the region by the the 20 yrs following the Spanish–American War. The damage
Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, was extensively documented, and Figure 2 is just one of the
and Americans. Spain was the dominant power in the Carib- many historical photos that show the earthquake’s results. A
bean for about three centuries, and the sea provided the route Special Earthquake Commission was formed during an emer-
used to move silver and gold from the New World to the mother gency session of the Puerto Rico legislature in December 1918.
country. However, Spain’s inadequate protection of her Carib- It was established, among other purposes, to collect informa-
bean colonies made the treasure convoys, as well the colonies tion about damage to civilian infrastructure caused by the
themselves, highly vulnerable to pirate attacks. The convoluted earthquake and to supervise the allocation of reconstruction
history of changing ownership of the islands among the Euro- funds. In addition to repairing damage to publicly owned infra-

doi: 10.1785/0220180083 Seismological Research Letters Volume 89, Number 2B March/April 2018 713

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 SRL Early Edition
▴ Figure 1. A radio tower at the Puerto Rico Seismic Network
(PRSN) seismic station at Lajas, Puerto Rico, was uprooted from
its concrete foundation during Hurricane Maria. (Photo courtesy
of PRSN.) The color version of this figure is available only in the
electronic edition.
structure, the government also granted funds to private citizens
to repair or replace their residences. By most accounts, the pro-
gram was efficiently and successfully administered, and it ended
in 1921, two and a half years after the event (LaForge and
McCann, 2017). In today’s scandal-driven news environment,
it is difficult to judge the effectiveness of the current relief ef-
fort, but the contrast between the responses today and those of
a century ago is striking.
Both historically and now, earthquake research and hazard
mitigation activities in Puerto Rico and the greater Caribbean
region have had their ups and downs. Details can be found in a
number of BSSA and SRL publications, but in general local seis-
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by Indonesian Agency for Meterology, Climatology and Geophysics user
mograph networks came to life in the 1970s, concurrent with
those in the United States. The Puerto Rico Seismic Network
grew from a few stations in 1974 to about 45 today, with de-
tection thresholds at about M w 3. Paleoseismological studies
have identified Holocene faulting in the southern and western
parts of the island, and Global Positioning System networks have
refined plate movements and internal deformation of the island.
The 2004 M w 9.2 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami drove
home the fact that tsunamis are often the bad seismological
actors, and that many locales, notably the Indian Ocean and
the Caribbean region, were lacking tsunami warning systems
similar to that for the Pacific. More than 75 tsunamis have
been reported in the Caribbean in the past 500 years, mostly
in the eastern part (McNamara et al., 2016).
In 2010, the Caribbean Tsunami Warning Program was es-
tablished by the U.S. National Weather Service, and it now
comprises about 100 broadband stations throughout the
Caribbean (McNamara et al., 2016). A particular challenge is
the compact size of the region. A tsunami originating in the
Colombia–Venezuela thrust belt would take only an hour to
reach the south coast of Puerto Rico. Residents along the east
coast of the Lesser Antilles and north coast of the Greater
Antilles have just minutes between the earthquake occurrence
and arrival of a tsunami. Efforts are underway to improve station
density, warning systems, and communication networks to min-
imize warning delays. Public awareness activities include the Car-
ibeWave17 tsunami exercise held in 2017. About three quarters
of a million people in the region participated, making it the larg-
est international tsunami drill in the world to date (Intergovern-
mental Oceanographic Commission [IOC], 2017). On the
ground-shaking front, Puerto Rico is subject to the same build-
ing code requirements as the rest of the United States.
One source of good news is the rise of the Internet, which
has greatly enhanced cooperative data sharing and research
activities across international boundaries. The decreasing cost
of instrumentation and computers due to economy-of-scale
effects and the availability of open-source software has allowed
a focus on important research questions rather than tedious
data processing.
On the downside, the “billions for relief, but not a penny
for mitigation” mentality has always plagued our mission, and
not only in the Caribbean. As geoscientists whose job it is to
inform public safety policy, we are also hampered by the “short-
sighted” (i.e., just plain short) record of earthquake activity we
have to work with. But to me, “short-sighted”—in the sense of
refusing to make long-term cost-effective investments in public
safety—is inexcusable.
I admit the title of this piece is somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
But the Marquez novel it is based on (Marquez, 1967) is an
excellent portrayal of the history of Spanish colonialism that
came with the United States’ annexation of Puerto Rico in
1898. I firmly believe that to effectively conduct and imple-
ment mitigation policies in collaboration with local officials,
one must understand the locale’s history and culture.
Since 1918, the fate of Puerto Rico has been mixed, and in
my impression generally good, but recent natural events (not to
March/April 2018
 SRL Early Edition
▴ Figure 2. Families walk by the marina building damaged in the 1918 M w 7.3 Mona Canyon earthquake in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico (Photo
courtesy of Archivo General de Puerto Rico.)
mention the island’s fiscal crisis) cast a large shadow on the
island’s future. I know that this year’s SSA participants will
miss the beaches, rum, guava juice, and mofongo. Let us hope
that Puerto Rico can get back on its feet soon and that future
SSA meetings will be held there.
On a personal note, I have had the pleasure of working on
projects in the region for the past 20 years or so. I have noticed
that for those who work in the region, it becomes a labor of
love—funding is always tight, and hours spent are almost
always more than hours charged. But the scientific issues are
challenging and important, the people and culture are friendly,
there is a strong camaraderie among colleagues, and after the
conference there is often dancing to salsa or merengue.
A government’s response to natural disasters has a way of
revealing its level of concern for the welfare of its citizens. Do
we want to write off Puerto Rico and turn it into a haven for
tourists and the wealthy, or rebuild it and create a healthy,
sustainable economy? I prefer the latter.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Input and reviews from Carol Prentice, Christa von Hille-
brandt-Andrade, Dan McNamara, and Gordon LaForge are
gratefully acknowledged.
Seismological Research Letters
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REFERENCES
Calais, E., Y. Mazabraud, B. Mercier de Lepinay, P. Mann, G. Mattioli,
and P. Jansma (2002). Strain partitioning and fault slip rates in the
northeastern Caribbean from GPS measurements, Geophys. Res.
Lett. 29, no. 18, 3-1–3-4.
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) (2017). Intergovern-
mental Coordination Group for theTsunami and other Coastal Hazards
WarningSystemfortheCaribbeanandAdjacentRegions(ICG/CARIBE-
EWS), Twelfth Session, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, 10–12 May 2017.
LaForge, R., and W. R. McCann (2017). Address-level effects in
Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, from the 1918 M w 7.3 earthquake and
tsunami, Seismol. Res. Lett. 88, no. 5, doi: 10.1785/0220170044.
Marquez, G. G. (1967). A Hundred Years of Solitude, Harper & Row,
New York, New York (English version, 1970).
McNamara, D. E., C. von Hillebrandt-Andrade, J.-M. Saurel, V. Huer-
fano, and L. Lynch (2016). Quantifying 10 years of improved earth-
quake-monitoring performance in the Caribbean region, Seismol.
Res. Lett. 87, no. 1, doi: 10.1785/0220150095.
Pindell, J., and L. Kennan (2009). Tectonic evolution of the Gulf of Mexico,
Caribbean and northern South America in the mantle reference frame:
An update, Geol. Soc. Lond. Spec. Publ. 328, 1–55, doi: 10.1144/SP328.1.
Roland LaForge
Golden, Colorado, U.S.A.
LaForgeGeoconsulting@gmail.com
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