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Room: 209A

Date: 4/18/2023

Session Time: 8:00 AM to 11:15 AM (local time)

The island of Puerto Rico is situated in the northeastern corner of the Caribbean basin, where active geological features around the island reflect the current tectonic environment of an oblique collision between the Caribbean and North American plates. Although microseismic activity occurs daily, only occasional small events are felt by the general population.  In Puerto Rico, for exactly 102 years prior to the year 2020, the people of Puerto Rico were unaware of what was to live in a seismically prone area. The January 7th, 2020 Mw6.4 earthquake and ensuing seismic aftershock activity in Southwestern Puerto Rico served as a wake-up call to the entire population, forcing them to realize how vulnerable the island is to seismic activity.  Seismic monitoring and research carried out in the region for the past decades were instrumental to classify the seismic risk and provided limited knowledge of the tectonics of the region.  However, it was all the co/post-seismic activity, geodetically-determined crustal monitoring, and marine geophysical surveys performed during the past couple of years that allowed us to learn more about the rupture process, the current kinematics, and related effects. With this session, we seek to unite all efforts and contributions related to the January 7th, 2020 earthquake and layout all the findings with the goal of providing the current state of knowledge and a venue to discuss a seismic sequence known for releasing a complex rupture process and an atypical aftershock behavior.  We look forward to all contributions on seismic assessment of the rupture process, relocations, aftershock forecasts, post-seismic deformation, and secondary triggered phenomena such as landslides, liquefaction, and tsunami that are related to the Southwest Puerto Rico 2020-2021 seismic sequence.

Conveners:

Gisela Baéz-Sánchez, Puerto Rico Seismic Network, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez (gisela. baez1@upr.edu)

Victor Húerfano, Puerto Rico Seismic Network (victor@prsnmail.uprm.edu)

Stephen K. Hughes, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez (kenneth.hughes@ upr.edu)

James Joyce, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez (james.joyce@upr.edu)

Daniel A. Laó-Dávila, Oklahoma State University (daniel.lao_davila@okstate.edu)

Alberto M. Lopez, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez (alberto.lopez3@ upr.edu)

Margarita Solares-Colón, University of Oregon (msolares@uoregon.edu)

Elizabeth A. Vanacore, Puerto Rico Seismic Network, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez (elizabeth.vanacore@upr.edu)

Christa von Hillebrandt, International Tsunami Information Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (christa.vonh@noaa.gov)

Oral Presentations