Earthquake source parameters for the 2010 January Haiti main shock and aftershock sequence

Abstract

Previous analyses of geological and geodetic data suggest that the obliquely compressive relative motion across the Caribbean-North America plate boundary in Hispaniola is accommodated through strain partitioning between near-vertical transcurrent faults on land and low-angle thrust faults offshore. In the Dominican Republic, earthquake focal-mechanism geometries generally support this interpretation. Little information has been available about patterns of seismic strain release in Haiti, however, due to the small numbers of moderate-to-large earthquakes occurring in western Hispaniola during the modern instrumental era. Here, we analyse the damaging MW= 7.0 earthquake that occurred near Port au Prince on 2010 January 12 and aftershocks occurring in the four months following this event, to obtain centroid-moment-tensor (CMT) solutions for 50 earthquakes with magnitudes as small as MW= 4.0. While the 2010 January main shock exhibited primarily strike-slip motion on a steeply dipping nodal plane (strike=250°, dip=71° and rake=22°), we find that nearly all of the aftershocks show reverse-faulting motion, typically on high-angle (30°-45°) nodal planes. Two small aftershocks (MW 4.5 and 4.6), located very close to the main shock epicentre, show strike-slip faulting with geometries similar to the main shock. One aftershock located off the south coast of Haiti shows low-angle thrust faulting. We also examine earthquakes occurring in this region from 1977-2009; successful analysis of four such events provides evidence for both strike-slip and reverse faulting. The pattern of seismic strain release in southern Haiti thus indicates that partitioning of plate motion between transcurrent and reverse structures extends far west within Hispaniola. While we see limited evidence for low-angle underthrusting offshore, most reverse motion appears to occur on high-angle fault structures adjacent to the Enriquillo fault. Our results highlight the need to incorporate seismogenic slip on compressional structures into hazard assessments for southern Haiti. © 2010 The Authors Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.