Nazca plate pressures and lithospheric tearing in South America

February 26, 2011 – We are entering a period of massive geological upheaval and the dexterity of the lithosphere will continue to be compromised by the increase in volcanism, fault fractures, glacial pressures subsidence, and as tectonic plate movements continue to test the tensile strength of the planet’s crust. Lithospheric deformation is already occurring in India, New Zealand and the Pacific, Upper Michigan and in South America with the new instability arising from the forces perturbing the Cocos, Caribbean and the Nazca plate.  We point to the new fault earthquakes in countries like Haiti discovered after the 7.0 earthquake in 2010 and after the 7.1 Canterbury quake of 2010 and the most recent 6.3 Christchurch quake which struck in February of 2011. Now our attention turns to tears and landslips that have erupted in Boliva and Peru, both of which countries are near the ever-agitated Nazca plate. 

PERU: The sudden appearance early in the morning of an enormous crack, measuring 100 meters wide and three kilometers long, caused confusion among residents of the Huacullani district in the Chucuito province, department of Puno. The exact cause of the crack in the earth still unknown. Peru’s geophysical institute ruled out the occurrence of an earthquake in the region, but what is clear is that the ground opened up and large blocks of earth can be observed scattered throughout the area. The event, recorded Wednesday morning, caused the collapse of one house located in the rural community of Llorohoco. Four people managed to escape, but the youngest in the family, five-year-old Jean Carlos Vilcanqui Acero, is missing. Geological engineers from the regional committee for civil defense have arrived in the area to investigate the phenomenon and determine its causes, said Javier Pampamallco, Puno’s civil defense chief. –Living In Peru

Boliva: Massive cracks in the ground appeared. A total of 21 homes with more than 34 families were damaged in Urb Los Alamos and La Florida, La Paz area of Alpacoma, where there was a landslip of 20 hectares, due to recent rains which have soaked the field and revived the ancient fault that caused the landslide in 2002. –Pensaecrita

  

Above: the latest seismic anomalies from (left) Antarctica and (right) Venuezula -Southern hemisphere