Tectonic Summary
Magnitude 5.0 NEW MEXICO
Wednesday, August 10, 2005 at 22:08:22 UTC
Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver
The earthquake occurred near the Colorado-New Mexico border, about 40 km (20-30 mi) southwest of Trinidad. The earthquake was located in the geologic boundary between the Rockies and the Great Plains. In 2001, a swarm of small earthquakes occurred between this one and Trinidad. Their locations suggested that the swarm broke a buried fault that is oriented northeast and nearly vertical. The largest earthquake in the swarm was M 4.6. Since 2001, approximately 20 small earthquakes have occurred within 30 km (20 mi) of this one, but few were large enough to be felt and none caused any damage. The largest two of these earthquakes were M 4.4. This earthquake appears to have been the largest known in the area where it occurred. However, the 2001 swarm southwest of Trinidad had an earthquake nearly as large.
EARTHQUAKES IN THE STABLE CONTINENTAL REGION
Most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains has infrequent earthquakes. Here
and there earthquakes are more numerous, for example in the New Madrid seismic zone
centered on southeastern Missouri, in the Charlevoix-Kamouraska seismic zone of
eastern Quebec, in New England, in the New York - Philadelphia - Wilmington urban
corridor, and elsewhere. However, most of the enormous region from the Rockies to the
Atlantic can go years without an earthquake large enough to be felt, and several U.S.
states have never reported a damaging earthquake. The earthquakes that do occur strike
anywhere at irregular intervals.
Earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains, although less frequent than in the West, are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. A magnitude 4.0 eastern U.S. earthquake typically can be felt at many places as far as 100 km (60 mi) from where it occurred, and it infrequently causes damage near its source. A magnitude 5.5 eastern U.S. earthquake usually can be felt as far as 500 km (300 mi) from where it occurred, and sometimes causes damage as far away as 40 km (25 mi).
FAULTS
Earthquakes everywhere occur on faults within bedrock, usually miles deep. Most of the region's bedrock was formed as several generations of mountains rose and were eroded down again over the last billion or so years.
At well-studied plate boundaries like the San Andreas fault system in California, often scientists can determine the name of the specific fault that is responsible for an earthquake. In contrast, east of the Rocky Mountains this is rarely the case. All parts of this vast region are far from the nearest plate boundaries, which, for the U.S., are to the east in the center of the Atlantic Ocean, to the south in the Caribbean Sea, and to the west in California and offshore from Washington and Oregon. The region is laced with known faults but numerous smaller or deeply buried faults remain undetected. Even most of the known faults are poorly located at earthquake depths. Accordingly, few earthquakes east of the Rockies can be linked to named faults. It is difficult to determine if a known fault is still active and could slip and cause an earthquake. In most areas east of the Rockies, the best guide to earthquake hazards is the earthquakes themselves.
