Costa Rica News – Earthquakes are overly common in Costa Rica. You get used to it and luckily the likelihood of earthquakes over a magnitude of 8 is low. We can also be grateful that buildings are built to sustain them.
This small country that generates so many earthquakes can be seen as having a scientific advantage, according to Marino Protti, a seismologist at the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica at the National University.
He implemented a seismic monitoring program that has just celebrated 20 years. With this program he was able to anticipate the earthquake in Nicoya on September 5, 2012.
He knew it would occur and even what features it would have.
Only 2% of the subduction zones in the world, where one tectonic plate slides under another, have firm land on top of them.
Costa Rica has two areas that fall in this category making it the ideal place to study earthquakes. We have four plates interacting over five plate boundaries.
Because of Protti’s research, the public can be warned before an earthquake. Additionally, the building code was bettered based on his work.
