Bends in Caribbean transform fault requires rethinking simple models
By Alka Tripathy-Lang and Wendy Bohon
September 29, 2021
On January 28th, 2020, beneath pristine Caribbean waters, a magnitude-7.7 strike-slip earthquake ruptured the Oriente fault that separates Jamaica and Cuba. This transform fault splits spreading centers—where new oceanic plate forms—from one another. Scientists typically frame these near-vertical crustal-scale gashes as simple planar features.