To learn more information about this quake-
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/us2010crbl.php
Notable Earthquakes from Mexico-
- 1887 05 03 - Northern Sonora, Mexico - M 7.4 Fatalities 51
- 1907 04 15 - Guerrero, Mexico - M 7.7
- 1911 06 07 - Off Guerrero, Mexico - M 7.7 Fatalities 45
- 1931 01 15 - Oaxaca, Mexico - M 7.8 Fatalities 114
- 1932 06 03 - Jalisco, Mexico - M 8.1 Fatalities 45
- 1932 06 18 - Colima, Mexico - M 7.8
- 1957 07 28 - Guerrero, Mexico - M 7.9 Fatalities 68
- 1959 08 26 - Vera Cruz, Mexico - M 6.8 Fatalities 20
- 1962 05 11 - Guerrero, Mexico - M 7.0 Fatalities 4
- 1962 05 19 - Guerrero, Mexico - M 7.1 Fatalities 3
- 1964 07 06 - Guerrero, Mexico - M 6.9 Fatalities 30
- 1965 08 23 - Oaxaca, Mexico - M 7.3 Fatalities 6
- 1968 08 02 - Oaxaca, Mexico - M 7.1 Fatalities 18
- 1979 10 15 - Imperial Valley, Mexico - California Border - M 6.4
- 1985 09 19 - Michoacan, Mexico - M 8.0 Fatalities 9,500
- 1999 06 15 - Central Mexico - M 7.0
- 1999 09 30 - Oaxaca, Mexico - M 7.5
- 2002 02 22 - near Mexicali, Mexico - M 5.7
- 2002 12 10 - Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico - M 4.8
- 2003 01 22 - Offshore Colima, Mexico - M 7.6 Fatalities 29
- 2003 09 11 - near Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico - M 3.7
- 2004 06 15 - Offshore Baja California, Mexico - M 5.1
- 2006 01 04 - Gulf of California - M 6.6
- 2006 08 11 - Michoacan, Mexico - M 5.9
- 2008 02 12 - Oaxaca, Mexico - M 6.5
- 2009 08 03 - Gulf of California - M 6.9
- 2009 12 30 - Baja California, Mexico - M 5.9
- 2010 04 04 - Baja California, Mexico - M 7.2 Fatalities 2
Most of the Mexican landmass rests on the westward moving North American plate. The Pacific Ocean floor off southern Mexico, however, is being carried northeast by the underlying motion of the Cocos plate. Ocean floor material is relatively dense; when it strikes the lighter granite of the Mexican landmass, the ocean floor is forced under the landmass, creating the deep Middle American trench that lies off Mexico's southern coast. The westward moving land atop the North American plate is slowed and crumpled where it meets the Cocos plate, creating the mountain ranges of southern Mexico. The subduction of the Cocos plate accounts for the frequency of earthquakes near Mexico's southern coast. As the rocks constituting the ocean floor are forced down, they melt, and the molten material is forced up through weaknesses in the surface rock, creating the volcanoes in the Cordillera Neovolcánica across central Mexico.
Areas off Mexico's coastline on the Gulf of California, including the Baja California Peninsula, are riding northwestward on the Pacific plate. Rather than one plate subducting, the Pacific and North American plates grind past each other, creating a slip fault that is the southern extension of the San Andreas fault in California. Motion along this fault in the past pulled Baja California away from the coast, creating the Gulf of California. Continued motion along this fault is the source of earthquakes in western Mexico.
Mexico has a long history of destructive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In September 1985, an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale and centered in the subduction zone off Acapulco killed more than 4,000 people in Mexico City, more than 300 kilometers away. Volcán de Colima, south of Guadalajara, erupted in 1994, and El Chichón, in southern Mexico, underwent a violent eruption in 1983. Paricutín in northwest Mexico began as puffs of smoke in a cornfield in 1943; a decade later the volcano was 2,700 meters high. Although dormant for decades, Popocatépetl and Ixtaccíhuatl ("smoking warrior" and "white lady," respectively, in Náhuatl) occasionally send out puffs of smoke clearly visible in Mexico City, a reminder to the capital's inhabitants that volcanic activity is near. Popocatépetl showed renewed activity in 1995 and 1996, forcing the evacuation of several nearby villages and causing concern by seismologists and government officials about the effect that a large-scale eruption might have on the heavily populated region nearby.
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