By Gabriel González, Pablo Salazar, Juan González, and Mahesh Shrivasta along with UCN-Collaborators; Mario Pereira and Rodrigo Riquelme
April 2014, CIGIDEN (Centro de Investigación para la Gestión Integrada del Riesgo de Desastres)
The northern most part of Chile is tectonically characterized by the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. The convergence rate at this part is about 65 mm/yr along a vector oriented N75E (1, 2). In the area of the Pisagua‐Patache Seismic Sequence (PPSS), the seismic interaction at the interplate contact occurs over a megathrust plane with curved geometry in map view, striking 346º and dipping 18º to the east. The PPSS region lies within the Northern Chile Seismic Gap. This gap experienced the last great earthquake in 1877 and the seismic moment deficit for this gap has been estimated in 1.38 x 10+22 Nm. The seismic moment released by the PPSS was approximately 2.7868 x 10+21, about 20% of the total seismic moment deficit for the entire seismic gap.
Read the Report: The 16th March‐3 April 2014, Pisagua‐Patache Seismic Sequence Rapid Response Internal Report (1,018 kB PDF)
