CCAF-DB: the Caribbean and Central American active fault database

Abstract

A database of ∼250 active fault traces in the Caribbean and Central American regions has been assembled to characterize the seismic hazard and tectonics of the area, as part of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation's Caribbean and Central American Risk Assessment (CCARA) project. The dataset is available in many vector GIS formats and contains fault trace locations as well as attributes describing fault geometry and kinematics, slip rates, data quality and uncertainty, and other metadata as available. The database is public and open source (available at: https://github.com/GEMScienceTools/central_am_carib_faults, last access: 23 March 2020), will be updated progressively as new data become available, and is open to community contribution. The active fault data show deformation in the region to be centered around the margins of the Caribbean plate. Northern Central America has sinistral and reverse faults north of the sinistral Motagua–Polochic fault zone, which accommodates sinistral Caribbean–North American relative motion. The Central Highlands in Central America extend east–west along a broad array of normal faults, bound by the Motagua–Polochic fault zone in the north and trench-parallel dextral faulting in the southwest between the Caribbean plate and the Central American forearc. Faulting in southern Central America is complicated, with trench-parallel reverse and sinistral faults. The northern Caribbean–North American plate boundary is sinistral off the shore of Central America, with transpressive stepovers through Jamaica, southern Cuba and Hispaniola. Farther east, deformation becomes more contractional closer to the Lesser Antilles subduction zone, with minor extension and sinistral shear throughout the upper plate, accommodating oblique convergence of the Caribbean and North American plates.