Citation

Herd DG, Youd TL, Meyer H, Arango CJL, Person WJ, Mendoza C. Science 1981; 211(4481): 441-445.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1981, American Association for the Advancement of Science)

DOI

10.1126/science.211.4481.441

PMID

17816596

Abstract

Southwestern Colombia and northern Ecuador were shaken by a shal-low-focus earthquake on 12 December 1979. The magnitude 8 shock, located near Tumaco, Colombia, was the largest in northwestern South America since 1942 and had been forecast to fill a seismic gap. Thrust faulting occurred on a 280- by 130-kilometer rectangular patch of a subduction zone that dips east beneath the Pacific coast of Colombia. A 200-kilometer stretch of the coast tectonically subsided as much as 1.6 meters; uplift occurred offshore on the continental slope. A tsunami swept inland immediately after the earthquake. Ground shaking (intensity VI to IX) caused many buildings to collapse and generated liquefaction in sand fills and in Holocene beach, lagoonal, and fluvial deposits.

Language: en