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This zigzag type of fault trace is known as "mole track", which is best developed in hard-packed, brittle surface materials. The Motagua Fault has been responsible for several major earthquakes in Guatemala's history, including the 7.5 M w Guatemala 1976 earthquake, and is also notable for its significant visible fault trace. [4]
The Motagua Fault, which crosses through Guatemala, is a transform boundary between the southern edge of the North American plate and the northern edge of the Caribbean plate. New Zealand's Alpine Fault is another active transform boundary. The Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault which runs through the Jordan River Valley in the Middle East.
The northern boundary with the North American plate is a transform or strike-slip boundary that runs from the border area of Belize, Guatemala (Motagua Fault), and Honduras in Central America, eastward through the Cayman trough along the Swan Islands Transform Fault before joining the southern boundary of the Gonâve microplate.
Plate tectonics in the Americas Motagua Fault (green line) and the Middle America Trench (pink line). Earthquakes are relatively frequent occurrences in Guatemala. [1] The country lies in a major fault zone known as the Motagua and Chixoy-Polochic fault complex, which cuts across Guatemala and forms the tectonic boundary between the Caribbean plate and the North American plate.
The Chixoy-Polochic Fault is a large, dominantly strike-slip, left-lateral fault that runs largely parallel to the Motagua Fault situated some 45 km to its south. Both fault zones are onshore extensions of the Bartlett Deep, or Cayman Trench of the Caribbean Sea, which marks the tectonic boundary between the Caribbean plate and the North American plate. [1]
The geology of Guatemala encompasses rocks divided into two tectonic blocks. The Maya Block in the north has igneous and metamorphic North American Craton basement rocks , overlain by late Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks, which experienced deformation during the Devonian .
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The volcano was known as Gagxanul in the local Kʼicheʼ language, which means "Naked Volcano or Mountain", before the 16th century Spanish conquest of the region. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The VEI -6 eruption of Santa María Volcano in 1902 was one of the three largest eruptions of the 20th century, after the 1912 Novarupta and 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruptions.