Electronic Supplement to
Structure and Holocene Rupture of the Morelia Fault, Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, and Their Significance for Seismic-Hazard Assessment

by Max Suter

This electronic supplement contains three documents. Document 1 shows the calibration from radiocarbon ages to calendar years for the three samples in Table 1 of the main article; Document 2 is a catalog of earthquakes recorded 1894–1904 at the Observatorio del Seminario Conciliar de Morelia (Anonymous, 1909); and Document 3 is a list of earthquake observations from the Boletín mensual de la sección meteorológica del Estado de Michoacán between July 1909 and December 1911.

Documents

Document 1 [Adobe PDF; 6 pgs.; 2.2 MB]. The radiocarbon calibration diagrams in Document 1 were created by Beta Analytic, Inc., Miami, Florida. They are included here to document their analyses more completely.

Document 2 [Adobe PDF; 8 pgs.; 6.7 MB]. The Jesuit meteorological observatory Observatorio del Seminario Conciliar de Morelia was inaugurated in April 1892 and published a monthly bulletin from January 1895 on Pastrana (1906). Their local Morelia earthquake catalog (Document 2) is included in this repository item because it apparently has not been taken into account in any recent earthquake catalog of Mexico (such as García Acosta and Suárez Reynoso, 1996) or the state of Michoacán (such as Garduño Monroy et al., 1998) and because this primary source may be difficult to obtain. The catalog was scanned at Universitätsbibliothek Basel, Switzerland, which holds of the Boletín Mensual del Observatorio del Seminario Conciliar de Morelia the issues año 12 (1906), 15 (1909), 16 (1910), and 19 (1913). These issues do not contain earthquake information except año 15, no. 2, febrero de 1909, which includes a catalog of earthquakes recorded at the observatory 1894–1904. The recordings in the catalog begin in November 1894. A seismoscope (seismógrafo de bala) is mentioned in the recordings for May 1895 and March 1896, seismoscopes (seismógrafos) in the recordings for February 1899. Parameters of seismoscopic ellipses are given for earthquakes in 1900–1904. The only damaging earthquake during this period originated 20 January 1899.

Document 3 [Adobe PDF; 3 pgs.; 2.5 MB]. For the same reasons given above for Document 2, I also include in this repository item information from the observatory of the Sección Meteorológica del Estado de Michoacán, which was inaugurated in June 1908. Apparently, its instruments did not include a seismoscope. The observatory published a monthly bulletin, named Boletín mensual de la sección meteorológica del Estado de Michoacán, which was printed in Morelia at the Talleres de la Escuela Industrial Militar “Porfirio Díaz.” The first number of their bulletin (for June 1908) was published 5 July 1908. The volumes do not follow the calendar year but the meteorological year; for example, the volume for 1909 begins with December 1908. I consulted this bulletin at the library José Luis de la Loma y de Oteyza, in Mexico City, in their archived holdings of the former Observatorio Meteorológico Central de México. Document 3 includes a list of the earthquake observations I culled from the issues available at the José Luis de la Loma y de Oteyza library. It also includes a facsimile of the cover and first page of the inaugural issue of this bulletin.


References

Anonymous (1909). Temblores de tierra anotados en los registros del Observatorio 1894–1904, Observatorio del Seminario Conciliar de Morelia, Boletín 15, no. 2, 19–24 (in Spanish).

García Acosta, V., and G. Suárez Reynoso (1996). Los sismos en la historia de México, tomo I, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, and Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 718 pp. (in Spanish).

Garduño-Monroy, V. H., A. Cuevas Muñiz, and R. J. Escamilla Torres (1998). Descripción histórica de la sismicidad en Colima, Jalisco y Michoacán, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico, 172 pp. (in Spanish).

Pastrana, M. E. (1906). El Servicio Meteorológico de la República Mexicana, Monografía formada para la Exposición Universal de San Louis Missouri, Imprenta y Fototipía de la Secretaría de Fomento, Mexico City, 138 pp. (in Spanish).

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