By: Staff Writer
July 1, 2022
Director of UWI Seismic Research Centre Dr Euroscilla Joseph says that earthquakes in the region are more common with more people recording the activity, says that the mechanisms at the UWI-SRC need to be updated to provide more accurate readings in time.
Dr Joseph, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that the Caribbean has two types of earthquakes. There are earthquakes that precipitate a volcanic eruption as we have seen with the La Soufrière eruption on St Vincent and the Grenadines in 2021 and then there are “tectonic earthquakes” that happen as a result of the earth’s plates shifting.
She said about the La Soufrière that the earthquakes leading up to the April, 2021 eruption came in more frequently prior to the actual eruption itself. These “swarms” of earthquakes were common for an anticipated volcanic eruption, something Dr Joseph said her team was prepared some six months prior to it happening.
Tectonic earthquakes are something different than the ones caused by moving magma as a result of volcanic activity, but one thing is for certain, oil drilling has nothing to do with it.
Earthquakes have been happening more frequently in the Caribbean from the Leeward Islands to the Greater Antilles and even as far as the South-east coast of North America. “These are not uncommon as more people are around to experience and record these events and share them on social media.”
Dr Joseph added: “Oil drilling has nothing to do with it. It’s the movement associated with faults that are causing earthquakes,” but the UWI-SRC has also gotten better at predicting the likelihood of earthquakes in the region based on years of data and research, she likens the study to that of Hurricane predictions: “In terms of meteorology and hurricanes, you know that after a certain amount of years a notable sized hurricane should be expected. Well, with earthquakes, there is a similar study in terms of how we look at the historical record.”
The instrumentation at the UWI-SRC is limited due to age and operational usage, with some of the equipment being over 70 years old, but Dr Joseph makes the best use of what they have. “We need funding for new equipment. Part of the reason why we responded to the La Soufriere eruption was because we got the information too late because we only had two operating seismic stations on the island, when we used to have at least six stations fully operational,” she said.
Without question the SRC needs an increase in funding from the sponsoring Caribbean countries as the work needs to be done on time to save life and property. “There are other islands in which due to funding and availability of funding and so on that there is always work to be done because these instruments have a certain lifespan and under some very rugged terrain, so we are at a stage where these things are analog and we are now digital because we are receiving varied information from these equipment to satellites and other mechanisms by which we monitor, all of this contributed to the situation where we had to rapidly deploy and work within a very short space of time.”
Luckily there was no loss of life from the La Soufriere eruption, but there were some tense moments as the team had to battle through COVID-19 restrictions to leave Trinidad and Tobago in order to reach SVG to help keep Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves abreast of what should be taking place with the eruption.
Prime Minister Gonsalves, kept a cool head throughout and only evacuated the danger zone areas when it was absolutely necessary to do so, prompting questions from the observers who thought he was dragging his feet. Dr Joseph said Prime Minister Gonsalves was not dragging his feet, he was monitoring the situation very carefully and did not want to panic the residents of the immediate impact areas. Additionally, evacuating too early would have been a logistical nightmare with people going back and forth waiting on whether or not the eruption would be as it was effusive, or explosive.