Resumen

PALME, Christl  y  ALTEZ, Rogelio. Los terremotos de 1673 y 1674 en los andes venezolanos. INCI [online]. 2002, vol.27, n.5, pp.220-226. ISSN 0378-1844.

The earthquakes occurred in December 1673 and January 1674 in the Venezuelan Andes have not received the attention corresponding to the destruction and the social-economic impact they caused. The earthquakes affected a large region between Trujillo and Mérida causing heavy damage in both cities. The reason why these earthquakes passed nearly unnoticed in the traditional Venezuelan catalogs are, on one hand, the low density of the Spanish population during the 17th century in the affected region and on the other hand, the invasion of French pirates, which covered historically the effects of the earthquakes turning the attention away to other even more destructive catastrophes. The current state of the evaluation and historic information of the events is presented and limits for some of the source parameters (localization and magnitude) for the largest of those events are established. Three procedures were used: the method of isoseismal lines, an estimation of the magnitude based on the area affected by landslides and an estimation of the epicentral area and the magnitude using the statistical procedure developed by Bakun and Wentworth. This resulted in a local magnitude between 6.6 and 7.1 and as the most probable region for the epicenter is 8.8º-9.0º N and 70.8º-71.0º W. At this time we cannot associate with certainty the source to a particular fault system of the study area, nevertheless different possibilities are discussed.

Palabras clave : Sismicidad Histórica ; Sismología ; Andes Venezolanos .