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Late Holocene Structural Style and Seismicity of Highly Transpressional Faults in Southern Haiti

Journal Article · · Tectonics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2017tc004920· OSTI ID:1560560
 [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Houston, Houston, TX (United States)
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The devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake (Mw 7.0) was caused by rupture of the Léogâne, blind, thrust fault located 5 km north of the 1,200-km-long, left-lateral, Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone (EPGFZ). Unexpectedly, the EPGFZ remained largely quiescent or slightly reactivated during the 2010 earthquake. Nevertheless, the EPGFZ still formed a major, crustal boundary between a coseismically uplifted lowland north of the EPGFZ and a subsided area in the highlands south of the fault. Here we use high-resolution sonar data from two Haitian Lakes that straddle the EPGFZ to demonstrate the presence of a 10- to 15-km-wide, 120-km-long, late Holocene fold-thrust belt which deforms clastic, lowland basins along the northern edge of the EPGFZ. In the eastern part of the study area, sonar results from Lake Azuey show that the linear trace of the EPGFZ cutting the Holocene lake bed is more deeply buried and less active than the adjacent, newly discovered, northwest striking, northeast dipping Jimani thrust fault that is part of the adjacent, transpressional belt of en echelon thrusts and folds. This structural relationship between a less active EPGFZ and more recently active, transpression-related Jimani thrust is remarkably similar to the 2010 epicentral area 70 km to the west between the less active EPGFZ and seismogenic, northeast-dipping, Léogâne thrust during the 2010 Haiti earthquake. In this complex transpressional zone, we propose that coseismic deformation alternates at recurrence intervals of centuries between oblique, transpression-related structures (Léogâne, Jimani, and Trois Baies thrusts) and the main strike-slip, plate boundary fault zone (EPGFZ).
Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1560560
Journal Information:
Tectonics, Journal Name: Tectonics Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 37; ISSN 0278-7407
Publisher:
Wiley/American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (2)

The Tectonics and Active Faulting of Haiti from Seismicity and Tomography journal March 2019
Neotectonics of Southeast Jamaica Derived From Marine Seismic Surveys and Gravity Cores journal November 2019

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Related Subjects

2010 Haiti earthquake
58 GEOSCIENCES
CHIRP sonar
blind thrust fault
conjugate thrust fault
strike‐slip fault
transpression