THE VALLEY, ANGUILLA – The Department of Disaster Management with the Puerto Rico Strong Motion Program (PRSMP) of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) established on August 15, 2018, the first strong motion station which will record high intensity earthquakes in Anguilla. This is a milestone of a collaboration project which started several years ago, and in which the PRSMP has invested about $25,000 USD.
The PRSMP is under the Civil Engineering & Surveying Department of the UPRM, and has a strong motion network of 115 stations distributed in Puerto Rico (92), Dominican Republic (17), British Virgin Islands (5), US Virgin Islands (1), and now Anguilla makes the 116th station. These stations are ready to record high intensity earthquakes in the northeastern side of the Caribbean Tectonic Plate.
The data recorded by the station will benefit the people of Anguilla because, in many ways, it will provide improved monitoring of two faults, the Anegada trench and the Puerto Rico trench. It will also be very useful for the design of earthquake resistant structures. For example: a) Data from the units are used for the development of Seismic Hazard Maps of the region which is an extremely important aspect in the development of the building codes, b) with the data collected the natural period of vibration of the ground is determined, so that structural engineers should avoid designing buildings with natural period of vibrations similar to the ground to reduce the seismic vulnerability of the structure, and c) the data collected during a big earthquake is used as input data in the computer models of structures to study the seismic behavior of structures such as buildings, and towers.