Subduction zone earthquake catalog separation tool: Implementation in the USGS 2025 Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands National Seismic Hazard Model

Kirstie Lafon Haynie; Eric M. Thompson; Mike Hearne; Gavin P. Hayes; David R. Shelly; Allison Shumway; Andrea L. Llenos; Andrew J. Michael; Peter M. Powers

doi:10.1785/0220250078

Subduction zone earthquake catalog separation tool: Implementation in the USGS 2025 Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands National Seismic Hazard Model

Seismological Research Letters

By: Kirstie Lafon Haynie, Eric M. Thompson, Mike Hearne, Gavin P. Hayes, David R. Shelly, Allison Shumway, Andrea L. Llenos, Andrew J. Michael, and Peter M. Powers

https://doi.org/10.1785/0220250078

Metrics

Web analytics dashboard Metrics definitions

Links

More information: Publisher Index Page (via DOI)
Open Access Version: Publisher Index Page
Download citation as: RIS | Dublin Core

Abstract

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) periodically releases updates to National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM) for the United States and its territories leveraging current scientific knowledge and methodologies to guide public policy, building codes, and risk assessments regarding potential ground shaking due to earthquakes that may result in infrastructure damage. In subduction zones, there is a need to separate the earthquake catalog into tectonic regimes to create specific seismicity models for which the most appropriate ground‐motion models are then applied. Here, we describe newly developed methods and software, called CatSep, that classifies subduction zone events into three primary tectonic regimes: crustal, interface, and intraslab. This method incorporates information about the location of the earthquake relative to the subducting slab, the depth of the Mohorovičić discontinuity, and the earthquake’s moment tensor. Applying this method is a first step in the NSHM workflow for regions covering U.S. subduction zones. Results using this subduction zone earthquake catalog separation tool for the 2025 Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands NSHM earthquake catalog are presented and analyzed.

Study Area

Additional publication details
Publication type	Article
Publication Subtype	Journal Article
Title	Subduction zone earthquake catalog separation tool: Implementation in the USGS 2025 Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands National Seismic Hazard Model
Series title	Seismological Research Letters
DOI	10.1785/0220250078
Edition	Online First
Publication Date	October 15, 2025
Year Published	2025
Language	English
Publisher	Seismological Society of America
Contributing office(s)	Earthquake Science Center, Geologic Hazards Science Center - Seismology / Geomagnetism
Country	United States
Other Geospatial	Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands