Modeling a tsunami from the Nicoya, Costa Rica, seismic gap and its potential impact in Puntarenas

 

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Chacon-Barrantes, Silvia, Protti, Marino
Formato: artículo
Fecha de Publicación:2011
Descripción:Although subduction zones around the world are known to be the source of earthquakes and/or tsunamis, not all segments of these plate boundaries generate destructive earthquakes and catastrophic tsunamis. Costa Rica, in Central America, has subduction zones on both the Pacific and the Caribbean coasts and, even though large earthquakes (Mw = 7.4–7.8) occur in these convergent margins, they do not produce destructive tsunamis. The reason for this is that the seismogenic zones of the segments of the subduction zones that produce large earthquakes in Costa Rica are located beneath land (Nicoya peninsula, Osa peninsula and south of Limón) and not off shore as in most subduction zones around the world. To illustrate this particularity of Costa Rican subduction zones, we show in this work the case for the largest rupture area in Costa Rica (under the Nicoya peninsula), capable of producing Mw ∼ 7.8 earthquakes, but the tsunamis it triggers are small and present little potential for damage even to the largest port city in Costa Rica.The Nicoya seismic gap, in NW Costa Rica, has passed its ∼50-year interseismic period and therefore a large earthquake will have to occur there in the near future. The last large earthquake, in 1950 generated a tsunami which slightly affected the southwest coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. We present here a simulation to study the possible consequences that a tsunami generated by the next Nicoya earthquake could have for the city of Puntarenas. Puntarenas has a population of approximately eleven thousand people and is located on a 7.5 km long sand bar with a maximum height of 2 m above the mean sea level. This condition makes Puntarenas vulnerable to tsunamis.
País:Repositorio UNA
Institución:Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica
Repositorio:Repositorio UNA
Lenguaje:Inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:https://repositorio.una.ac.cr:11056/17476
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11056/17476
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:TSUNAMI
PUNTARENAS (COSTA RICA)
GOLFO DE NICOYA (COSTA RICA)
SISMOLOGÍA
PENÍNSULA DE NICOYA