Written in SCIENCE he
Mexico It is a country with high seismic activity, so many of the inhabitants are already accustomed to facing this type of earth movements, especially those who live in the geological faults that cross the Mexican Republic. Do you know in where HE locate, how many are there in the country and what states affect? It was the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) who revealed the information.
According to the UNAM in a newsletter published by the Directorate of Social Communication (DGS) in 2019, in Mexico Several low magnitude earthquakes are experienced daily, especially in the Valley of Mexico, because there are some geological faults active in this area. These types of telluric movements occur on pre-existing faults, so for one of them to occur there must be an active fault below.
The UNAM details that the Valley of Mexico is crossed by a series of faults, which according to Luis Quintanar Robles, researcher at the Department of Seismology of the Institute of Geophysics (IGf), are activated by an accumulation of stresses that give rise to seismicity. In Mexico City, several geological faults have been detected, which we list below, and the entity is located in a volcanic-tectonic zone that is prone to producing telluric movements:
- Mixhuca Fault
- Santa Catarina Fault
- Xochimilco Fault
- Contreras Fault
How many geological faults are there in Mexico?
Mexico It is located in the Pacific ring of fire, in addition to the fact that its territory is crossed by several geological faults, but the main ones are San Andreas Faultthe Mesoamerican fault and the Transverse volcanic axis. Due to its location, the Mexican Republic is crossed by the coconut plates and the North American. The latter slides over the first so they accumulate energy and when it is released they cause earthquakes of medium to high magnitude.
Mexico is also crossed by the San Andrés Fault, which moves sideways and is one of the most active geological faults, so although seismic activity is very common, a large earthquake has rarely developed. The most recent and devastating incident caused by this plaque took place in San Francisco at the beginning of the 20th century.
According to the government of the CDMXthe Mesoamerican region (Mexico and Central America) is an area that has a high tectonic activity due to the subduction of the Cocos plate that crosses the Mesoamerican Trench. In the south and west of the country, tectonic activity is more complex due to the subduction of the Cocos plate beneath the Caribbean and North American plates.
CDMX Civil Protection also details that the country is one of the countries with the highest seismic activity in the world since more than 90 earthquakes occur per year with a magnitude greater than 4 degrees. Likewise, there are some states in the country where more earthquakes occur that can directly affect the country’s capital:
- Jalisco
- Colima
- Michoacan
- Warrior
- Oaxaca
- Puebla
- Mexico state
- Veracruz