Earthquake Aftershock

Since Haiti was struck by 7.0 magnitude earthquake, that decimated Haiti capital, the United States Geological Survey has recorded 14 earthquake aftershocks in the region that measured from 5.0 to yesterday evening’s 6.0 earthquake aftershock.

These earthquake aftershocks are a proof of the authenticity of the report published by Woods Hole, a seismologist who has written in his report that these aftershocks are most likely to occur with greater frequency than before and that region must prepare for a greater earthquake aftershock series.

The reason behind this report is the fact that Haiti and its neighbors are sitting on the mingling point of North American and Caribbean tectonic plates.

These tectonic plates are tending to slide past each other quite awkwardly with a ratio of one inch in a year in east-west direction. The 100 mile wide, Enriquillo Fault Line runs under Dominican Republic through Haiti to the extents of Jamaica.

The 12th January Haiti earthquake occurred because of the rupture of these two plates that had been stayed calm since 1751 when the previous major earthquake shook the island. When the plates jerked themselves free from each other they actually release the two and half century built friction from the epicenter and displaced enough ground to cause havoc in Haitian capital.

A map released by UNAVCO shows that Last Tuesday earthquake did not release all the tension but shifted a good deal of it to other segments of the fault line.

The two most vulnerable points for earthquake aftershocks after this shifting of tension will be Miragoane and Dominican borders and Woods has predicted that this tension will release in the shape of almost equal or greater earthquakes.