Transferencia de esfuerzos estáticos de Coulomb, factor clave en la tectónica y la peligrosidad sísmica en Centroamérica

Abstract

In this work we show how the occurrence of some earthquakes can highly contribute to the seismic and tectonic pattern development of entire regions applying the stress transfer model. This paper focuses on northern Central America and particularly on a representative zone which has suffered the consequences of the earthquake triggering phenomenon recently. This zone is El Salvador: a very active area from the geological point of view. At the beginning of 2001 two earthquakes shook the country provoking one o f the biggest disasters of the last decades. The first earthquake took place within the subducting slab and the second one took place in the El Salvador Fault Zone (ESFZ). This fact led us to study the relation between the two main events and how the former could digger the latter. In the 80's such a thing happened too: An Ms 7.3 earthquake took place within the subducting slab in 1982, and in 1986 another earthquake took place in the El Salvador Fault Zone. We argue that the tectonic configuration of the zone determines the occurrence of these coupled events, and conversely; the occurrence o f those promotes the development of this tectonic configuration.