2012 Samar earthquake
m-7.6 earthquake near Samar, Philippines in 2012
An earthquake off the coast of Samar occurred on August 31, 2012, at 20:47 local time (12:47 UTC) in the Philippines. The populated islands of Visayas were struck by an earthquake of magnitude Mw 7.6. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 45 km (27.9 miles). A tsunami warning was announced within the Pacific area and was lifted after two hours. The Philippine archipelago is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, where earthquakes and volcanic activity are common.
Geology
The Philippine Mobile Belt is between the Eurasia plate and the Philippine Sea plate. The Philippine Sea plate is subducting along the Philippine Trench in this region. At the latitude of the earthquake, the Philippine Sea plate moves in the WNW direction at a velocity of approximately 100 mm/yr with respect to the Sunda plate.
This event was an intraplate earthquake greater than 50 kilometers to the east of the boundary of the Philippine Sea plate. This earthquake was unusual in that it occurred as a result of reverse faulting within the oceanic lithosphere of the Philippine Sea plate.
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This entry incorporates text from “2012 Samar earthquake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.