RAPID GPS data acquisition in Jamaica for coseismic and postseismic studies of the Jan. 28, 2020 M=7.7 Oriente Fault earthquake

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This RAPID project will gather and make available data from 50 GPS sites in Jamaica and surrounding islands following the magnitude 7.7 that occurred on January 28, 2020. As the most recent of four earthquakes that have ruptured the Caribbean-North America plate boundary since 2009, the Oriente Fault earthquake has renewed concerns about seismic hazards in nearby southern Cuba and on the densely populated island of Jamaica, where similar faults last ruptured in 1907. The researchers supported here will gather data with collaborators at the Jamaican Earthquake Unit of the University of West Indies and archive the data at UNAVCO, where it will be available to the entire community. The new data will be analyzed, modeled, and interpreted in collaboration with a team that includes scientists from France, Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica. This data collection effort will provide the foundation for several distinct research areas of interest. The project will include an estimation of a geodetic fault-slip solution and earthquake moment. New geodetic slip solution will be used to calculate the magnitude and pattern of Coulomb stress changes across active faults elsewhere in the region, which is critical for evaluating near-term seismic risks associated with the 2020 earthquake. A postseismic slip solution will reveal whether the 2020 earthquake triggered any silent deep fault slip or slip on adjacent unruptured areas of the Oriente Fault. The refined slip solution will be used to predict and study the viscoelastic after-effects of the earthquake, which will be critical for interpreting and modeling the regional GPS velocity field for decades to come. Thew new data along with superb Jamaica GPS data from the two decades before the earthquake will be essential for refining viscosity estimates for the lower crustal and/or upper mantle, which are critical for modeling and interpreting GPS data in tectonically active regions worldwide. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.