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Venezuela announced a Follow up on national emergencies Two earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 Which happened just 39 seconds apart on Wednesday. This phenomenon, known as a seismic doublet, is rare.
However, there are documented cases in different regions of the world that are still being studied to expand our understanding of the mechanisms of stress transmission within the Earth’s crust and the interaction between geological faults.
The US Geological Survey said the epicenter of the two quakes was northwest of the town of Yumare, near the city of Morón and about 160 kilometers (99 miles) west of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. The earthquakes occurred at depths of 20.3 and 10 kilometers and were felt by most residents of northern Venezuela and many Caribbean countries.
The sequence is classified as an extreme seismic duplex, a phenomenon that occurs at two Earthquakes of similar strength Hit almost simultaneously in neighboring areas. According to the US Geological Survey Estimatesthe probability that an earthquake will be followed by another of greater magnitude in a nearby area within a week is about 5 percent.
One of the most significant double earthquakes in modern history occurred about three years ago in Türkiye and Syria, when a 7.6-magnitude quake was followed by a 7.8-magnitude quake. One study suggested that this phenomenon was the result of tectonic pressure that had built up over more than two centuries along the fault responsible for the first earthquake. When it ruptured, it released stress that was transferred to a nearby crack, quickly triggering the second event.
How does seismic coupling occur?
Experts believe that a similar process may have occurred in Venezuela. “It is likely that the first earthquake caused part of the fault to rupture and transfer pressure to another fault, which in turn ruptured, leading to the second earthquake,” Mark Allen, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University, explained in a statement carried by SMC Spain.
Allen also noted that the geological characteristics of the area where the epicenters were located played an important role. “The events appear to have occurred at the plate boundary between South America and the Caribbean. In this region, the plates move horizontally relative to each other, similar to what happens along San Andreas error In California,” he says.
These conditions generate aftershock earthquakes, which occur when two blocks of the Earth’s crust move horizontally along a fault and suddenly release stress that has built up over long periods.
