A major earthquake rocked Haiti on Tuesday January 12th 2010, crushing thousands of buildings, including the presidential palace and the UN peacekeeping building.  It is too early to know how many have lost their lives in this earthquake disaster, but one thing is for certain, Haiti will never be the same again. 

Compared to the well-known seismic areas like the Pacific Rim, the Caribbean seems geologically quiet, but this area — where tectonic plates meet — has a long history of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes.

In 1946, the Dominican Republic, just across the border from Haiti, experienced a magnitude eight earthquake, which triggered a tsunami. Other major recorded earthquakes in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries may have been produced by movement of the same fault that caused Tuesday’s disaster.

Earthquakes generally occur when the tectonic plates that make up the Earth’s crust move suddenly. Eric Calais, a geophysicist, says that sudden movement can follow a buildup of stress as adjacent plates struggle to move past each other.

Major Tectonic Plates