An updated and unified earthquake catalog from 1787 to 2018 for seismic hazard assessment studies in Mexico

Rashad Sawires; Miguel A Santoyo; José A Peláez; Raúl Daniel Corona Fernández

doi:10.1038/s41597-019-0234-z

An updated and unified earthquake catalog from 1787 to 2018 for seismic hazard assessment studies in Mexico

Sci Data. 2019 Oct 29;6(1):241. doi: 10.1038/s41597-019-0234-z.

Authors

Rashad Sawires^{1

2}, Miguel A Santoyo³, José A Peláez⁴, Raúl Daniel Corona Fernández⁵

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Geophysics - Morelia Campus, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), 58190, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico. rashad.sawires@aun.edu.eg.
² Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, 71516, Assiut, Egypt. rashad.sawires@aun.edu.eg.
³ Institute of Geophysics - Morelia Campus, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), 58190, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Jaén, 23071, Jaén, Spain.
⁵ Postgraduate School in Earth Sciences, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico.

Abstract

Here we present a new updated and unified Poissonian earthquake catalog for Mexico. The details about the catalog compilation, the removal of duplicate events, unifying the magnitude scales, removal of dependent events through the declustering process and its completeness analysis are presented. Earthquake and focal mechanism data have been compiled from various local, regional and international sources. Large earthquake events (M_W ≥ 6.5) have been carefully revised for their epicentral locations and magnitudes from trusted publications. Different magnitude-conversion relationships, compatible with available local and regional ones, has been established to obtain unified moment magnitude estimates for the whole catalog. Completeness periods for the declustered catalog were estimated for the definition of appropriate seismic source models for the whole territory. The final unified Poissonian earthquake catalog spans from 1787 to 2018, covering a spatial extent of 13° to 33°N and 91° to 117°W. This catalog is compatible with other published catalogs providing basis for new analysis related to seismicity, seismotectonics and seismic hazard assessment in Mexico.