Seismicity in the Gulf of California, México, Before and After the El Mayor-Cucapah (Mw7.2) Earthquake of April 2010

Raul R. Castro, Dana D. Carciumaru, Hector Gonzalez-Huizar, William Vetel, Antonio Mendoza, & Arturo Pérez-Vertti

Published September 11, 2022, SCEC Contribution #11905, 2022 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #003 (PDF)

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We analyze the seismicity that occurred in the Gulf of California, México previous and after the occurrence of the 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah (Mw7.2) earthquake. For that purpose, we compile a catalog of earthquakes located in the region of the Gulf of California (GoC), between 1901 and 2018. This catalog consists of more than 5,600 earthquakes that occurred in the GoC region between latitudes 23N and 32N and longitudes between 107W and 115W. We include events reported by the catalog of the seismic network RESNOM (Red Sísmica del Noroeste de México) operated by CICESE (Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada, Baja California) and complemented with events listed in the ISC (International Seismological Centre) and the SSN (Servicio Sismológico Nacional, UNAM) catalogs. The minimum magnitude of completeness of the compiled catalog is Mc=3.6, and many hypocenters concentrate between 5 km and 10 km depth, the likely depth of the seismogenic zone of the earthquakes in the GoC. The distribution of the epicenters shows that the Pacific-North America plate boundary in the GoC is not simple, this plate boundary consists of a highly segmented fault system, particularly in the northern GoC, where the seismicity shows a broad zone of deformation. We identify active and inactive faults in this region, and we detected faults located approximately 300 km SE of the April 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah (Mw 7.2) earthquake that were probably reactivated by this earthquake sequence. We also detected seismicity lineaments and strike-slip events off the major transform faults that tend to occur parallel to the ridge direction either at the continental crust or at the oceanic-continental transition zone.

Key Words
Seismicity, Gulf of California, El Mayor-Cucapah

Citation
Castro, R. R., Carciumaru, D. D., Gonzalez-Huizar, H., Vetel, W., Mendoza, A., & Pérez-Vertti, A. (2022, 09). Seismicity in the Gulf of California, México, Before and After the El Mayor-Cucapah (Mw7.2) Earthquake of April 2010. Poster Presentation at 2022 SCEC Annual Meeting.


Related Projects & Working Groups
Seismology