The Motagua Fault (also, Motagua Fault Zone) is a major,

active Active may refer to: Music * ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea * Active Records, a record label Ships * ''Active'' (ship), several commercial ships by that name * HMS ''Active'', the name of various ships of the British Royal ...

left lateral-moving

transform fault A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduct ...

which cuts across Guatemala. It forms part of the

tectonic Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents ...

boundary between the

North American Plate The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. With an area of , it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacif ...

and the

Caribbean Plate The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean Plate borders ...

. It is considered the onshore continuation of the Swan Islands Transform Fault and

Cayman trench __NOTOC__ The Cayman Trough (also known as the Cayman Trench, Bartlett Deep and Bartlett Trough) is a complex transform fault zone pull-apart basin which contains a small spreading ridge, the Mid-Cayman Rise, on the floor of the western Caribb ...

, which run under the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

. Its western end appears not to continue further than its surface trace, where it is covered by Cenozoic volcanics. The Motagua Fault is regarded by some geologists as part of a system of faults designated the "Motagua-Polochic system" rather than as a discrete single boundary. The Polochic fault (also referred to as the Chixoy-Polochic Fault) lies north and parallel to the Motagua Fault and shares some of the motion between the North American and Caribbean Plates.

Earthquakes

The Motagua Fault has been responsible for several major

earthquakes in Guatemala Earthquakes are relatively frequent occurrences in Guatemala. 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 Plat ...

's history, including the 7.5 M_w Guatemala 1976 earthquake, and is also notable for its significant visible

fault trace A fault trace describes the intersection of a geological fault with the Earth's surface, which leaves a visible disturbance on the surface, usually looking like a crack in the surface with jagged rock structures protruding outward. The term also ...

.USGS Historic Earthquakes
/ref>

References

External links

Datapages, Volume 28 (1978)USGS Map
{{Faults Seismic faults of Guatemala Seismic faults of Mexico Strike-slip faults Motagua Geographic areas of seismological interest Pacific Coast of Mexico