Puerto Rico Earthquakes 2019 - 2020
As far as we are
aware, no one has ever done a survey looking for evidence of
paleotsunamis. It would likely cover 500 kilometers of coastline, and
would need a senior geologist with assessment experience and a group
of dedicated graduate and perhaps undergraduate students.
Puerto Rico is undergoing a seismic swarm southwest of Ponce. Mostly,
the earthquakes are Richter 3s with some Richter 2s and a few Richter
4s. Those are largely harmless, if a bit nerve-wracking. What is
desirable is to be able to predict if the swarm will eventually
contain one or more powerful events. To do that what is needed is
better (more consistent) seismic data. That is not Puerto Rico's
responsibility, but rather a challenge for Puerto Rico's neighbors.
The quality of Richter 2 and Richter 3 data, and, to an extent,
Richter 4 data just is not good enough. Nor is there data for Richter
5s for at least half of the 20th century. Maybe Puerto Rico swarms are
nearly unique. Maybe Richter 2s and 3s and 4s do not matter. Any
self-respecting statistician or geologist would want to see a lot
better data and a lot more of that data before making that judgment.
We are hoping that somewhere on floppy disks, punched cards or written
on parchment with a quill pen there is an archive of seismic data that
could be re-platformed on a database on the internet.
What Puerto Rico should do, by way of setting a positive example,
is to plan to accurately record deaths (both immediate and after the
event), injuries, disease outbreaks, damaged buildings and lessons
learned.
Recommendations - Earthquake and
tsunami data