The 1647 earthquake in central Chile as an intraplate event: another threat to metropolitan Chile

Abstract

The May 13, 1647 earthquake, the larger catastrophe in the colonial history of central Chile, is considered as the second event of the inter-plate earthquakes series that has occurred at regular intervals in this part of Chile. However, this historical analysis suggests this earthquake, besides generating a strong and widespread shaking in the central valley, did not produced a tsunami. Both features could imply it was an intra-plate event, sourced in the surface of the continental plate or deeper in the Nazca plate. The reported effects resemble those from the 1939 Chillan earthquake, a middle-depth intra-plate event that although it did not produce a tsunami it does generated large intensities in the central valley and a huge number of victims. If the 1647 earthquake was intra-plate, a problematic risk scenario is set for the most populated region of the country.