Haiti earthquakes in 1860 at Jour de Pâques may have created pressure in the main fault zone – ScienceDaily

Using details from historical newspaper accounts and letters, seismologists learned more about the sequence of the 1860 Jour de Pâques (Easter) earthquake in Haiti, and how it might have affected the country’s most recent devastating earthquake.

The new analysis published in the Bulletin of the American Seismological Society suggests that the 1860 sequence may have released a strain in an unusual gap between the 2010 Leogane earthquake and the 2021 magnitude 7.2 Nips earthquake.

The 2010 and 2021 earthquakes, both of which caused significant death and damage, occurred on the same fault systems in southern Haiti. Satellite observations collected after the 2021 earthquake showed that the fault zones of the two earthquakes were separated by a gap of about 50 kilometers.

Stacy Martin, Ph.D. A student at the Australian National University notices the gap while preparing for a presentation on the 2021 earthquake for the seismology group at ANU’s School of Earth Sciences Research. Additional discussions with USGS seismologist Susan Hogg led to the search for more information about the 1860 event, which may have occurred in the gap.

Previous studies concluded that there was only one Jour de Pâques event. “However, after the first newspapers were located … it soon became apparent that there were two major events, and it would be possible to say something more specific about each of them,” Martin said. “By working with Sue to trace the accounts and then model the event, it gradually became clear to us that there was a lot to the 1860 story.”

Researchers have collected historical accounts of earthquake shaking, building damage, and tsunami related to the 1860 event from French-speaking Haitian newspapers, accounts of ship captains published in English-language newspapers, and an eyewitness account written in German in a letter from the town of Les Cayes.

The accounts offer a colorful glimpse at times of how earthquakes occurred across the region – smashing dishes, pushing people to camp in the streets, flooding cemeteries and, in the event of a major aftershock, causing people to believe “they were seeing the last hour”.

Martin and Hogg used details about vibration, damage to structures, and locations from these calculations, along with information on building materials used at the time to estimate the severity of the sequence events. The researchers used this data to reconstruct the potential locations and scale of events.

The accounts clearly indicate that there were two major events at the beginning of the sequence: an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 to 6.4 occurred along the coast, near l’Anse-à-Veau on the morning of April 8, 1860; A second earthquake that evening, Martin and Hogg estimated a magnitude of 6.6 to 6.9. This second largest earthquake may be a multi-fault rupture occurring in the fault zone that contained the 2010 and 2021 earthquakes.

The researchers also documented 83 aftershocks in the sequence, including previously unknown aftershocks of magnitude 6.6 that occurred two days later.

“The level of detail in the German novel and in some letters and reports published in local newspapers was crucial in allowing us to distinguish separate events,” Martin said. “This, and in particular the German letter, clearly identified the times when the shocks were felt. Some newspapers also republished letters from individuals in the area who clearly attributed the damage to various events.”

Despite the delays in receiving material and the inability to visit libraries and archives during the pandemic to comb through these primary sources, Martin said the data they contained was worth the wait. While some seismologists find the process of tracking down historical sources too time-consuming or difficult, he said, “not searching for them would be tantamount to deploying a very expensive and sensitive seismometer and wouldn’t bother retrieving or referencing the data it records after a major earthquake.”

The researchers say more work is needed to find ancient seismic traces of previous earthquakes in the southern Haiti Peninsula, and to determine how they relate to current seismic hazards in the region. “What our study additionally highlights is that smaller, unassigned faults remain a threat to Haiti’s towns and cities,” Martin said.

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