Sources of Tsunamis in the Caribbean with Possibility to Impact the Southern Coast of the Dominican Republic, Expert meeting, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 6-7 May 2016.

Abstract

The southern coast of Dominican Republic is a very populated region, withseveral important cities including Santo Domingo, its capital. Important activities are rooted in the southern coast including tourism, industry, commercial ports, and, energy facilities, amongothers. According to historical reports, it has been impacted by big earthquakes accompanied by tsunamis as in Azua in 1751 and recently Pedernales in 2010, but their sources are not clearly identified.With partial support of the European Union funded project "Life-Saving Actions: Disaster preparedness and seismic and tsunami risk reduction in the south coast of San Cristóbal province, Dominican Republic» implemented by UNDP, UNESCO and the Assembly of Cooperation for Peace in Dominican Republic (ACPP),UNESCO together with the Seismological Institute of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo,organized the meeting of experts "Sources of tsunamis in the Caribbean with possibility to impact the southern coast of the Dominican Republic", on 6 and 7 May 2016, with invited experts and specialists ofDominican Republic, France, Haiti, Spainand theUnited States.The invited experts analysedin a closed meeting three groups of tsunami sources(tectonic sources, landslides and volcanic eruptions)of which they identified two groups of crediblesources of tsunamis in the Caribbean that could impact the southern coast of the Dominican Republic(tectonic sources and submarine landslides):I. Tectonic Sources: A.Near-field tectonic sources(less than 500 km from impact zone):-Western Muertos Trough (WMT) –Mw 8.0:-Small Muertos Trough 1 (SMT1) –Mw 7.6-Small Muertos Trough 2 (SMT2) –Mw 7.6-Muertos Trough Mega-splay (MS)–Mw 7.7B.Far-field tectonic sources:1. Southern Caribbean:-Northern Panama Deformed Belt (NPDB)–Mw 8.5-West branch of the South Caribbean Deformed Belt (WSCDB)–Mw 8.6-Full South Caribbean Deformed Belt (FSCDB)2. Northeastern Caribbean: Although thefollowing sources are at less than500 km of the impact zone, experts classified them as far-field given its expectedlower impact:-Puerto Rico Trench (PRT) –Mw 8.6-Mona Extension Fault (MEF) –Mw 7.6II. Submarine landslides: Within the different sourcesdiscussed only one was consideredasa potential threat, a potential landslide located ~100 km off the coast of Santo Domingo, denominated Complutense Slump (CS)by Granja et al. (2014).Volume of slump: 224km3.