lOO STEPHEN TABER 



(Miocene) is abruptly cut off by faulting at the shore line near the 

 mouth of Santiago Harbor/ 



Seismologic data are not available for the Cayman Islands, and 

 because of sparse population little is known about the effects of 

 earthquakes along the Sierra Maestra scarp except at Santiago de 

 Cuba. This city, founded in 15 14, has been repeatedly damaged 

 by earthquakes.^ Strong earthquakes were recorded at Santiago 

 in 1578, 1675, and 1677. ELimball states that the city was destroyed 

 by the shock of 1675,^ but the writer has not been able to verify 

 , this statement. The earthquake of February 11, 1678, known in 

 Cuban tradition as the great earthquake, caused enormous destruc- 

 tion in Santiago; and exactly one year later the cathedral was 

 destroyed by another shock. The severe earthquake of 1755 was 

 accompanied by a sea-wave which almost completely inundated 

 the town. The strongest earthquake recorded at Santiago, accord- 

 ing to Salterain, occurred June 11, 1766, and it was followed by a 

 large number of aftershocks. Many buildings were completely 

 destroyed and others were badly damaged. Between 1777 and 

 1852 eighteen important earthquakes are listed by Salterain, the 

 earthquake of August 20, 1852, and its aftershocks being especially 

 severe. 



In contrast with the Sierra Maestra region the north and central 

 parts of Cuba have been virtually free from seismic disturbances. 

 A severe earthquake followed by aftershocks originated in the 

 Sierra de los Organos of western Cuba in 1880, but, before that 

 time and since, earthquakes have been almost unknown in that 

 section. 



Passing eastward from the Bartlett Trough the fault zone is 

 marked by a depression which obliquely crosses the Windward 

 Passage and extends between Tortuga Island and the coast of 

 Haiti. The depression enters Haiti through Manzanillo Bay, and, 



'T. W. Vaughan, "Geological History of Central America and the West Indies 

 during Cenozoic Time," Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., Vol. XXIX (1918), p. 626. 



^ Most of the facts concerning Cuban earthquakes given in this paper have been 

 abstracted from "Ligera Resena de los Temblores de Tierra Occuridos en la Isla de 

 Cuba" by P. Salterain, Boletin de la Comislon del Mapa Gedlogico de Espana, Vol. X, 

 pp. 371-85, Madrid, 1883. 



3 R. B. Kimball, Ciiha and the Cubans, p. 20, New York, 1850. 



