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Hunting the Source of the 1692 Port Royal Tsunami: New Insights into Jamaican Tectonics and Geohazards

Hunting the Source of the 1692 Port Royal Tsunami:
New Insights into Jamaican Tectonics and Geohazards

By:
Dr. Matt Hornbach
Research Associate
University of Texas Institute for Geophysics

When:

Friday, Oct. 30, 2009, 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Join us for coffee beginning at 10:00 a.m.

Where:

Seminar Room 1.603, 10100 Burnet Road, Bldg 196-ROC, Austin, Texas 78758

Host:

Charles Jackson, UTIG


You are invited to watch this live broadcast!

Abstract
Jamaica is one of the most earthquake and tsunami-prone islands in the Caribbean, yet the faults responsible for Jamaica's worst earthquake-tsunami events remain a mystery. Since English settlement in 1655, the island has experienced at least ten significant (>Mw 6) earthquakes, eight of these generating tsunamis. The tsunamis are especially surprising since most of Jamaica's known active faults cut through the center of the island, well away from the coast. The most deadly earthquake/tsunami event was the great (~Mw 7.5-8.0) 1692 earthquake that destroyed the burgeoning pirate city of Port Royal. This earthquake triggered slope failures across the island and generated a tsunami that inundated Kingston Harbor. Although both the 1692 and 1907 Jamaican earthquakes remain two of the deadliest earthquake/tsunami events in Caribbean history, the faults responsible for triggering these events remain unknown. In an attempt to determine the possible source of these earthquakes, a team of researchers in the spring of 2009 collected several 2D chirp profiles off the coast of south-central Jamaica. Analysis of these data combined with results from tsunami wave modeling offer new insight into the source of Jamaican earthquakes and tsunami and the nature of the Caribbean/Gonave microplate boundary.