Was the 2010 Haiti Earthquake triggered by deforestation and the 2008 hurricanes?
Major earthquakes occur when the stress on rocks between two tectonic plates reaches a critical breaking point, allowing the earth to move along the connecting fault. While the slow creep of the tectonic plates makes earthquakes inevitable along major faults, the timing and exact location of the quake epicenter can be influenced by outside forces pushing down on Earth's crust. For example, the sloshing of water into the Eastern Pacific during El Niño events has been linked to magnitude 4, 5, and 6 earthquakes on the seafloor below, due to the extra weight of water caused by local sea level rise. Sea level rise due to rapid melting of Earth's ice sheets could also potentially trigger earthquakes, though it is unknown at what melting rate such an effect might become significant.
Figure 1. Google Earth image of Haiti taken November 8, 2010, showing the capital of Port-Au-Prince and the mountainous region to its west where the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake was. Note the brown color of the mountains, where all the vegetation has been stripped off, leaving bare slopes subject to extreme erosion. Heavy rains in recent years have washed huge amounts of sediment into the Leogane Delta to the north.
Figure 2. Zoom-in view of the Leogane Delta region of Figure 1, showing the large expansion in the Delta's area between 2002 and 2010. High amounts of sediments have been eroded from Haiti's deforested mountains and deposited in the Delta. Recent expansion of the river channel due to runoff from Hurricane Tomas' rains is apparent in the 2010 image. Image credit: Google Earth, Digital Globe, GeoEye.
At last week's American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting last week in San Francisco, Shimon Wdowinsky of the University of Miami proposed a different method whereby unusual strains on the crust might trigger an earthquake. In a talk titled, Triggering of the 2010 Haiti earthquake by hurricanes and possibly deforestation , Wdowinsky studied the stresses on Earth's crust over the epicenter of the mighty January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake that killed over 200,000 people. This quake was centered in a mountainous area of southwest Haiti that has undergone severe deforestation—over 98% of the trees have been felled on the mountain in recent decades, allowing extreme erosion to occur during Haiti's frequent heavy rainfall events. Since 1975, the erosion rate in these mountains has been 6 mm/year, compared to the typical erosion rate of less than 1 mm/yr in forested tropical mountains. Satellite imagery (Figure 2) reveals that the eroded material has built up significantly in the Leogane Delta to the north of the earthquake's epicenter. In the 2008 hurricane season, four storms--Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike--dumped heavy rains on the impoverished nation. The bare, rugged hillsides let flood waters rampage into large areas of the country, killing over 1,000, destroying 22,702 homes, and damaging another 84,625. About 800,000 people were affected--8% of Haiti's total population. The flood wiped out 70% of Haiti's crops, resulting in dozens of deaths of children due to malnutrition in the months following the storms. Damage was estimated at over $1 billion, the costliest natural disaster in Haitian history. The damage amounted to over 5% of the country's $17 billion GDP, a staggering blow for a nation so poor. Tragically, the hurricanes of 2008 may have set up Haiti for an ever larger disaster. Wdowinsky computed that the amount of mass eroded away from the mountains over the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake was sufficient to cause crustal strains capable of causing a vertically-oriented slippage along a previously unknown fault. This type of motion is quite unusual in this region, as most quakes in Haiti tend to be of the strike-slip variety, where the tectonic plates slide horizontally past each other. The fact that the 2010 Haiti quake occurred along a vertically moving fault lends support to the idea that the slippage was triggered due to mass stripped off the mountains by erosion over the epicenter, combined with the extra weight of the extra sediment deposited in the Leogane Delta clamping down on the northern portion of the fault. Wdowinsky gave two other examples in Taiwan where earthquakes followed several months after the passage of tropical cyclones that dumped heavy rains over mountainous regions. His theory of tropical cyclone-triggered quakes deserves consideration, and provides another excellent reason to curb excessive deforestation!
Figure 3. Two of 2008's four tropical cyclones that ravaged Haiti: Tropical Storm Hanna (right) and Hurricane Gustav (left). Image taken at 10:40 am EDT September 1, 2008. Image credit: NASA/GSFC.
Christmas in Haiti
Portlight.org will brighten the lives of hundreds of kids in Haiti this week, thanks to their successful Christmas in Haiti fundraiser. Portlight raised $1800 to buy toys, candies, and other assorted goodies. The shipment left Charleston last week, and will arrive in time for Christmas. Thanks to everyone who helped support this worthy effort!
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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now that is interesting
The biggest industry in the world is government.
Live in the US and it consumes over $12,000 per citizen (understated vs. what actually is spent, but it's the FY 2011 budget). That's not per household, that's per citizen.
If, say, you have a family of four, that's over $48,000. And they just get to take it, regardless of the quality and value of the product.
Think about it.
I choose corporations.
Could very well be, and most likely is, due to winds.
I seriously doubt it is above freezing there.
US labor is one of the highest paid in the world. That's why almost every gift this season says "Made in China"... So with what labor force, are we going to build and export solar panels and High tech clean energy devices to China and India? What's the solution? cause we are trapped. Every tech device that we send there to be manufactured is being copied, duplicated, even chips are cloned through reverse engineering and are being sold globally and even used to build their military toys....
well....the legal concept of corporate personhood is well established....and corporations don't create and run themselves...
More government and less private sector, the less you have of all those things you cherish.
I can't believe all this GW talk. We're better than this.
by Robert B. Reich
You may remember when the world was divided between communism and capitalism, and when the Chinese were communists. The Chinese still call themselves communists, but now they%uFFFDre also capitalists.
In fact, visit China today and you find the most dynamic capitalist nation in the world. In 2005, it had the distinction of being the world%uFFFDs fastest-growing major economy.
China is the manufacturing hub of the globe. It%uFFFDs is also moving quickly into the highest of high technologies. It already graduates more computer engineers every year than the United States.
Its cities are booming. There are more building cranes in use today in China than in all of the United States. China%uFFFDs super-highways are filled with modern cars. Its deep-water ports and airports are world class. Its research and development centers are state of the art. At the rate its growing, in three decades China will be the largest economy in the world.
In three decades???? It's almost there... while we keep on fighting between us on critical issues....
Great tune, canes!
You have mail.
lmao
Again we struggle over the same subject.
Warming = Yes
Man made = some by virtue of the science
All Man made = No way - look at history!
Heat, cold, melt, history, we don't know the impact for it will only be resident in the future history. We don't have the ability to tell you that your car is going to end the world.
It is not in our hands and we don't mean much in the overall scheme of things for the planet.
It is just that simple.
Clean, yes, as much as you can.......
What to do, what to do.
Pay the underdeveloped and limit our own development, so they prosper, or perhaps not, is the question. You all toy with how the 6 billion on this earth, WHO WANT WHAT YOU ENJOY, will advance - is what it boils down to.
Advancement means more energy needs.
Did you earn what you have, or did someone give it to you, that you now owe?
Just sayin, it aint about climate, the cronies proved that with the hacked emails. It is about people and the finite amount of currently affordable resources to support them.
Ya ain't gettin the output from solar, wind, thermal and water that can even come remotely close over the next 100 years to replace the current or expected/anticipated needs.
Do you want a nuke near you? That is really your only real replacement option to date.......... Yep, do your math......
And out>>>>>>
MESSAGE FROM MOTHER EARTH .....
WE ARE ALOT A LIKE IN MANY WAYS YOU AND I EXCEPT ONE
THERE ARE
BILLIONS OF YOU
YET
ONLY ONE OF ME.......
Thanks, and I sent a reply.
Night y'all.
Just look at how many coal power plants they bring live every week. Then look at their track record of telling the truth. Just sayin, folks boast of their green and they are not such.
Couldn't resist :)
..esp if yas 'Born on da Bayou"..
Seems like I have problems posting Youtube??? What's the effect on your Screen???
That is a very good example of consequences that are unforseen by most. Increasing acidity in the oceans has a detrimental affect on critters with calcareous shells which includes many corals, shellfish, and planktonic critters like diatoms.
Here I was, minding my own business, and you had to say something like this to draw me out of the woodwork.
Really? You would choose corporations over government?
Name one corporation that cares a darn about what condition the road in front of your house is in and is willing to repair it. Certainly you will find road construction companies lining up to get the tax payers' dollars to do the work. Other than that, they could care less about the condition of your road.
Name me one corporation that will come put out a fire at your house. Yes, there are volunteer fire companies in some areas, but no corporation will volunteer to come to your aid should your house catch on fire.
Name me one corporation that will come to your call should your house get broken into. Certainly you can pay a security service that will CALL the cops for you, if they get an alarm. You can even spend all you want for a private security company to LIVE at your home, if you wish. They, however, will not do so unless you pay them to do so. No corporation will do this on their own.
What corporation will defend this country against our enemies? Certainly we have contract security forces that work in our defense. More correctly put, in a corporation's paid protection of their resources. Even then, they can leave anytime they wish when the heat gets to be too much for them. All they have to say is, "You aren't paying me enough for this!". - On a side note, one of Rome's reasons for failure was its dependence on foreign armies that had no vested interest in keeping Rome safe. Sleep sound tonight. The Mexican army has your back??? Really? This is not a slam against Mexico, it is just that Mexico has no vested interest in fighting our wars for us.
Name me one corporation that would come to your aid should you or your family be threatened, murdered, raped or have any other crime committed against you and your family?
What corporation could care anything about you or your family or this nation, if they were not paid to do this? Guess what. They can also quit anytime they do not want to do it and leave you and your family wondering what you are going to do next.
Governments have many problems that would include ours. Governments of a democracy are elected by the citizens. Corporate leaders are selected by the Board of Directors.
One citizen gets one vote, in our democracy/republic. One share gets one vote in a corporation. You have 10,000 shares? Great! You also have 10,000 votes in that corporation.
Governments have a vested interest in the voters. Corporations have a vested interest in their bottom line and the ONLY voters that count to them are the MAJOR shareholders.
Yes, corporations are needed in a capitalistic society, such as ours. They will never have a vested interest in being the government but, they will always have a vested interest in influencing the government. Yet, we the citizens, do not have the right to vote the corporate leaders out of office. Do you REALLY like that set up? That is such a sweet deal, for the corporations. Their only concern is to make money and they could care less about you, me or anyone else that does not make them money.
BTW, if you are one that is in the camp that believes government should give you back the tax dollars because it is YOUR money, then I will ask how you will feel about giving your company back your paycheck because it THEIR money and not yours. They made the money. Why should they be forced to pay you any of it?
Have you ever heard of Thomas Jefferson? Did you ever try to heed his warnings about government and those that would try to influence government?
Governments are not perfect. That includes our own. Our government has survived all types of adversities over the past 244 years. Can you nane me one corporation with that kind of record? How many corporations have failed over the past 244 years?
I agree. Choosing corporations over governments seems like a "no brainer", until you actually use your brain and think it through.
Can you Please explain what went wrong???
You're right. Corporations are made up of people. Some of them are felons. Some of them are minors. Some of them are foreigners. Some of them have foreign investors. Some of them have foreign governments invested in them. When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the right of involvement in our election processes through campaign contributions then they also gave these rights to PEOPLE that have NO legal rights to our election processes, until this decision was made. Do you still feel, "all warm and fuzzy inside" knowing this?
+1,000
Thanks, I was using a browser called Opera.... Seems like I'll switch back to Firefox....
Wow. I don't think I could do that even if I tried.
Hi, KOG! I am glad you directed those fans away from Texas for awhile. Those of us on the Gulf Coast live here for the mild winters and kinda like it that way. I don't blame you for wanting to evacuate some of the cold air around you, but doesn't Hawaii need a little cooling off? Better yet, I hear the Artic is a little low on cold air right now. Do your fans have a reverse on them?
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