Geo Lab 3 (Pre-Lab Assignment)

E1: 2010 Haiti
Magnitude - 7.0
Depth - 13km
Tectonic Plates Involved - North American & Caribbean Plates
Plate Boundary Type - Transformed
Building Codes in place? - No building codes available
Estimated Financial Cost - 7.8 billion
Fatalities (If any) - 100k - 316k

E2: 2011 Tohuko
Magnitude - 9.0
Depth - 30km
Tectonic Plates Involved - Pacific and North American Plates
Plate Boundary Type - Convergent
Building Codes in place? - Stringet- they are more specific of the swaying of building during seismic events
Estimated Financial Cost - 309 billion
Fatalities (if any) - ~18k deaths

Although both the Haiti (2010) and Tohuko (2011) earthquakes are a ear apart, they have many similarities when it comes to the cause of occurrence. The Haiti earthquake occurred due to a collision between the North American and Caribbean transformed tectonic plates whereas the Tohuko earthquake occurred due to a collision between the North American and Pacific convergent tectonic plates. The depth and magnitude of an earthquake are important to determine how strong the seismic waves of collision would be as the tectonic plates crash. Both of these earthquakes were later associated with geometry and fault types. For example, the 2010 Haiti incident was connected to the Leogane fault and the 2011 Tohuko one was related to the denotation of the P-Mod and J-Mod during the main shock of this earthquake. In Japan earthquakes are very common due to the fact that it is located near major tectonic plate boundaries; similarly, Haiti has also been known to being a location prone to many earthquakes given their large history of previous occurrences.

Earthquakes don’t only affect a location territorial wise but also socially and economically. This is a time in which communities realize whether the environment they’ve been living in is safe.