List of earthquakes in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands lie at the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates, making these territories prone to earthquakes.[1] This is a highly active seismic region both surrounded and traversed by numerous faults; to the north, the North American plate subducts beneath the Caribbean plate, while a number of strike-slip faults cross the main island of Puerto Rico diagonally from southeast to northwest. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are also located on a microplate that is continuously being deformed by the subduction zone to the north. Puerto Rico is constantly at risk of experiencing major earthquakes, greater than 7.0.[2]