Microseismicity evidence for subduction of the Caribbean plate beneath the South American Plate in northwestern Venezuela

Abstract

Over 1100 microearthquakes with body wave magnitude mb <4 have been located in western Venezuela and the southwestern Caribbean region since the installation in 1980 of the Venezuelan Seismological Array, together with 120 events of mb ≥4, one of them with surface wave magnitude M s ∼6. This tectonically complex region is part of the boundary between the Caribbean and the South American plates. The main seismically active feature inland in western Venezuela is the northeast striking, 600‐km long, 100‐km wide, right‐lateral strike‐slip Boconó fault zone along the Venezuelan Andes. About 80% of the earthquakes located in the entire region in the period 1980‐mid‐1995 have occurred on this fault zone, at focal depths <20 km. Microearthquake activity at lower rates also occurs northwest of the Venezuelan Andes, both in the continental and Caribbean sea regions. Part of this activity takes place at depths down to ∼150 km. Northwest oriented seismicity depth profiles show the existence of a Benioff zone dipping to the southeast beneath northwestern Venezuela and northern Colombia. This indicates the presence of a northeast striking, southeast dipping subducted slab of the Caribbean plate beneath the South American plate. Hypocentral locations show that the northeastern end of this subduction occurs northwest of the Curaçao‐Aruba region, in the vicinity of a northwest trending, right‐lateral strike‐slip fault zone that joins up with the northeastern end of the Boconó fault zone. This latter place turns out to be the western end of the east‐west striking San Sebastián fault along the Venezuelan coast.