In July 2024, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Calama, Chile, damaging buildings and causing power outages.
In July 2024, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Calama, Chile, damaging buildings and causing power outages.
The country has endured violent earthquakes, including the most powerful recorded in history: a 9.5-magnitude “megathrust” event that struck central Chile in 1960, causing a tsunami and killing between 1,000 to 6,000 people. However, the Calama quake was different from the megathrust quakes that are usually associated with the most destructive events in Chile and around the world.
Megathrust earthquakes occur at relatively shallow depths. But the Calama quake occurred much deeper underground, at 125 kilometers beneath the Earth’s surface and within the tectonic slab itself.
Read more at: University of Texas at Austin
A team from The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Chile servicing a UTIG seismometer near Calama, Northern Chile, in 2024. UT graduate student Sabrina Reichert is in the background. U of Chile, Santiago researcher Bertrand J. M. Potin is in the foreground. (Photo Credit: Thorsten Becker/UT Austin)
