Why Do Volcanoes and Earthquakes Occur in the Caribbean?
Why Do Volcanoes and Earthquakes Occur in the Caribbean?Answer: The Caribbean is a seismically active area because the Caribbean and North American tectonic plates meet here, and fault lines occur where these tectonic plates move against one another. In places where one plate moves under another, the rock can melt, and pressure can push this molten lava to the surface, causing volcanic eruptions. Earthquakes are relatively rare in the Caribbean, and usually not very powerful. The devastating January 2010 earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti was an exception — a magnitude 7.0 temblor on the Richter scale that had its epicenter just 10 miles from the city. The Haiti earthquake resulted from a slippage along the Enriquilla-Plantain Garden Fault that runs east-west through Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Hispaniola also is home to another major fault line, the Septentrional Fault, which cuts across the northern interior of the island and also
