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Joint Spanish-United States Cruise Investigates Tsunami and Earthquake Hazards in the Northeastern Caribbean
A survey to map tsunami and earthquake hazards in the northeastern Caribbean was carried out between March 28 and April 17, 2005, aboard the Spanish research vessel Hesperides and the Puerto Rican commercial tugboat Kruger B. The survey was conducted jointly by the University of Madrid, the Spanish Royal Naval Observatory, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Woods Hole Science Center, and the Puerto Rico Seismic Network (operated by the University of Puerto Rico). It included detailed sea-floor mapping of a 24,000-km2 area south and southwest of Puerto Rico known as the Muertos Trough, where the Caribbean plate is possibly being thrusted or subducted under Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The area has never been mapped before, and so the level of recent tectonic activity there is unknown. The second part of the survey was centered in a section of the Puerto Rico Trench north of the Virgin Islands, previously mapped by the USGS (see "Mapping of the Puerto Rico Trench, the Deepest Part of the Atlantic, Is Nearing Completion," Sound Waves, October 2003). The purpose of this part of the survey was to understand the reason for the high level of earthquake activity in the area and its potential hazard to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Ten USGS ocean-bottom seismometers were deployed here to 6,000-m depth to record acoustic waves generated by the Hesperides. The seismometers will stay on the sea floor for a period of 7 months to record local seismicity. This deployment will also help calibrate the University of Puerto Rico Seismic Network to locate earthquakes in the Puerto Rico Trench. Seismic-reflection data, which provide vertical cross sections through the crust, were also collected and will augment ongoing USGS research in the area.
The third part of the survey included the deployment of land seismometers on the Dominican Republic, which recorded acoustic waves generated by the Hesperides south of the island. The survey included two stops, one in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and one in Roadtown, British Virgin Islands, where press conferences were held and school groups visited the ship. The USGS was represented by Uri ten Brink, Thomas O'Brien, and Edward Sweeney. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) technicians Vic Bender and Dave DuBois and University of Puerto Rico scientist Jay Pulliam (also affiliated with the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics) deployed the ocean-bottom seismometers.
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in this issue:
Habitat Mapping to Assess Health of Apalachicola Bay Oyster Fishery Submarine Ground-Water Discharge Along the Suwannee River Delta
Earth Day Celebration at Elementary School Department of Commerce Science and Technology Fellows Visit USGS USGS and American Ground Water Trust Expand Teacher Institute Program Youth Enrichment Service E-Team Visits USGS
USGS National Education Coordinator Visits St. Petersburg Office Kurt Rosenberger Joins the Western Coastal and Marine Geology Team  |
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U. S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
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