ANALYSIS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF SHAKEMAP BASED ON COMMUNITY INTENSITY MAP (CIIM) AND ACCELERATIONS IN THE PUERTO RICO SEISMIC NETWORK

The island of Puerto Rico is located between the limited of the two tectonics plates, Caribe plate and North American plate. The Caribbean plate is moving to the east, and the North American is moving to the west. This interaction created a subduction zone at North of Puerto Rico and this subduction zone created the marine trench at the North of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has been impacted by mayor earthquakes that affected the island in 1520, 1615, 1670, 1751, 1867 and 1918 (Mueller et al 2003; PRSN Catalogue). A system created by the USGS, the Shakemap, provides real time maps of the ground motions and the shake intensity of the event (Ward et al, 1999a). The shakemaps are created using empirical, accelerations of the events and using the “Did You Feel It” response of the Internet users. The empirical shakemap estimates the intensity based on attenuation, hypocenter and magnitude of the event. For research purposes the Puerto Rico Seismic Network is preparing a shakemap fed by accelerations and the Community Intensity Map (Ward et al, 1999). The Community Intensity Map (CIIM) collect data from the Internet users based on the shaking map, damage and the ground shaking, based on the citizens interaction (Wald et al 2011). The peak ground motion and the peak ground acceleration are used to obtain accelerations of the events using the data of the Puerto Rico Seismic Network.