Category Archives: plate tectonics

2019/05/14
9:20 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: New Ireland

This region of Earth is one of the most seismically active in the past decade plus. This morning, as I was preparing for work, I got an email notifying me of an earthquake with a magnitude M = 7.5 located … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, Extension, geology, landslides, pacific, plate tectonics, strike-slip, subduction, Transform, tsunami

2019/05/12
4:21 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Panamá

There was just now an earthquake beneath Panamá. The major plate boundary in the region is a subduction zone (convergent plate boudary) where the Cocos and Nazca plates dive northwards beneath the Caribbean plate forming the Middle America trench (MAT). … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, geology, plate tectonics, strike-slip, Transform

2019/05/06
9:10 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Papua New Guinea

Earlier today, there was an intermediate depth beneath eastern Papua New Guinea (PNG). With a magnitude M = 7.2, this is one of the largest earthquake so far in 2019. Here is the USGS website for this earthquake. Today’s earthquake … Continue reading →

Posted in collision, earthquake, education, geology, pacific, plate tectonics, subduction

2019/04/13
10:44 AM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Sulawesi, Indonesia

Today I awoke to the USGS earthquake notification service email about an earthquake offshore of Sulawesi, Indonesia. There was an earthquake with a magnitude M 6.8 to the southeast of the Donggala/Palu earthquake from 28 September 2018. Here is the … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, geology, Indonesia, plate tectonics, strike-slip

2019/04/05
11:38 PM
by: Jay Patton

18 April 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

Today is the anniversary of the 18 April 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. There are few direct observations (e.g. from seismometers or other instruments) from this earthquake, so our knowledge of how strong the ground shook during the earthquake are limited … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, geology, los angeles, pacific, plate tectonics, San Andreas, strike-slip, Transform

2019/04/05
10:28 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: central Aleutians

A couple days ago, in my inbox, there was an email from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center about an earthquake along the Aleutian Islands, near Rat Island, Alaska. However, this earthquake was not along the megathrust subduction zone fault there … Continue reading →

Posted in alaska, earthquake, pacific, plate tectonics, strike-slip, subduction

2019/03/26
10:22 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Northern Alaska

At shortly before 13:30 today in northern Alaska there was a large earthquake, with a magnitude of M=7.1. Many of us are familiar with the Good Friday earthquake, a megathrust subduction zone earthquake. This earthquake has a birthday tomorrow, from … Continue reading →

Posted in alaska, earthquake, education, Extension, geology, plate tectonics

2019/03/02
6:57 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Peru

On 01 March 2019 there was an intermediate depth earthquake near the border of Peru and Bolivia. In the past century, this is the first earthquake in this area at this depth. There are some historic quakes to the east, … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, pacific, plate tectonics, subduction

2019/02/23
1:45 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Ecuador

Well, as I was getting up this morning, my social media feed was abuzz about the intermediate depth earthquake in Peru. While it was quite deep (

Posted in earthquake, education, plate tectonics, subduction

2019/02/01
11:06 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Guatemala and Mexico

This morning (my time) there was a moderately deep earthquake along the coast of southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. Here is my Temblor article about this M=6.6 earthquake and how it might relate to the 2017 M=8.2 quake. Offshore of … Continue reading →

Posted in caribbean, earthquake, education, Extension, geology, mexico, pacific, plate tectonics, subduction