Earthquakes

I've been told rumbles still occur from time to time but nothing serious has happened in a while. I believe that part of the code standard includes earthquake on new buildings.

Okay, okay I went and did a search. So far what I found...
went to askjeeves.com searched USVI earthquakes
Found: quote from some news source: VTTEMA (?) lists as active fault line called the Anegada fault. Every 100 years there is major catastrophic quake and the last one was 130 years ago. (of course this is only based on Records from the early 1700's on which only leaves 300 years to come up with a figure of every 100 years....) This is from April 8th of 1997. I guess still overdue????

I also found www.irf.org/irhazmit.htm an article titled Mitigating the Impact of Natural Hazards in the US Virgin Islands.

Good luck...

Post Edited (05-10-04 10:06)

Yes, they do occur. Mostly fairly small ones, but occasionally we'll get a rip roarer (4.3 or 4.4). There was a big earthquake after the hurricane of 1867- an interesting book is "Disaster and Disruption in 1867: Hurricane, Earthquake and Tsunami in the Danish West Indies", compiled by Roy Watlington and Shirley Lincoln 1997.

We felt a few during our 2002 visit. One was strong enough that we stopped and held on to the sides of our hotel room just looking each other like "what the...!" We went out of the room and asked the housekeepers on if they knew what it was and they said "thunder". It sounded and felt like a mack truck was driving across the roof above us (you could feel the quake rolling) and then there was a big "bang" at the end...like the truck hit a wall. There were two more during that visit.....but much less intense. I do not like them...especially not that close to the water!

Eve - It's VITEMA - Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency or other - sort of the local version of FEMA 🙂

There are a lot of fault lines and quite a few of the caribbean islands are volcanic. The plates under the ocean shifts from time to time causing an earthquake. The volcano at Montserrat went off a few years back.

I found a great website yesterday and was reading it and got booted so I got no clue where I was! It was great and I'll try to step my way back through on-line mire to find it today. Once I got booted I didn't get back on-line. It had great pics of the fault lines and plates and how they move (or slip). I really got into Geology back in College. Interesting stuff! I've never felt in earthquake that I remember. Had one in Ohio but it was like a train going through. Hardly noticed til the news told you what happened. Anyways, I'll post later if I find it.

Also asked a friend from PR about it and he said yes but nothing to it mostly as well.