The Haiti Earthquake

Avery, Aron, and Jeffrey

About the Haiti Earthquake
The Haiti earthquake was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that mainly affected
Port-au-prince but also affected the following countries
● The bahamas, British Virgin islands, Dominica, Dominican Republic,
Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, Guadalupe, Haiti, Montserrat, Puerto Rico,
Saint Kitts and Nevis, Turks and Caicos islands, U.S. virgin islands,
Venezuela, Caribbean netherlands, Saint Barthelemy, Antigua and
Barbuda, and Augilla
Though it was a 2.5 in all of these countries
What happened

● 220,000 people died in

Port-au-prince
● Estimated 3 million people were
affected by the Earthquake (not
just in Port-au-prince)
● Many houses were destroyed
● Took 10 years to clean up
everything
● $7.8 - $8.5 billion for the clean
up
What this has to do with plate tectonics
Haiti sits on two huge tectonic plates, one being the North American plate
and the other being the Caribbean plate. When two plates slide against each
other a earthquake happens. According to a Seismograph measurement of
this earthquake, this earthquake was a 7.0 level earthquake
What type of Plate boundary is demonstrated
This is a Strike-slip fault boundary
● A place where tectonic plates on each side of the fault line are moving
horizontally in opposite directions (Like rubbing your hands together)
● When these plates lock together, stress then builds up, they then
eventually slip which produces a shaking