An earthquake focal mechanism catalog for source and tectonic studies in Mexico from February 1928 to July 2022

Abstract

Abstract. We present a focal mechanism catalog for earthquakes that occurred in Mexico and surrounding areas reported from February 1928 to July 2022. The magnitude of the events varies from -0.9 to 8.2. The hypocentral depth is in the range of 0 < Z < 270 km. Focal mechanisms in this catalog are associated with tectonic, geothermal, and volcanic environments. Reported fault plane solutions were derived using different types of data at local, regional, and teleseismic distances and different methods such as first motions, composite solutions, waveform analysis, and moment tensor inversion. So far, focal mechanism data for earthquakes in Mexico, were dispersed over many publications without any link among them. For this reason, we collected and revised focal mechanism solutions previously reported by different agencies and studies from published sources. Our catalog consists of 5701 fault plane solutions, and we report all the available focal mechanisms obtained by different authors and seismological agencies for each seismic event. Additionally, we classified the fault type into seven types: normal (N), normal – strike-slip (N-SS), strike-slip – normal (SS-N), strike-slip (SS), strike-slip – reverse (SS-R), reverse – strike-slip (R-SS), and reverse (R) providing some preliminary statistics results. We used the ternary diagrams of Kaverina-type classification to verify the rupture type of focal mechanism data. We also provide a classification of the quality of the focal mechanism data into three categories: A, B, and C. A represents good/reliable data, B represents regular, and C represents poor/questionable data according to a well-defined criterion. Our intention is to provide a comprehensive compilation of focal mechanism data which can help in future source and tectonic studies in Mexico. The earthquake focal mechanism catalog (https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Earthquake_focal_mechanism_catalog_for_Mexico/21663668; Rodríguez-Pérez and Zúñiga, 2022) is given as the Supplement of this paper.