Earthquake catalogs for New Mexico and bordering areas: 2005-2009

Abstract

The earliest documented records of large earthquakes in New Mexico go back to the early 1900s, and seismicity has been monitored instrumentally since the early 1960s. This catalog is a continuation of previous catalogs spanning 1962 through 2004 and includes 165 earthquakes Md ≥ 2.0. In addition it also includes all located events with Md ≥ 0 in New Mexico. Similar to the 1999– 2004 catalog, we found that a large number of earthquakes Md ≥ 2.0 were located in two distinct regions. One of these regions is in southeastern New Mexico near the Dagger Draw oil field (32% of all events with Md ≥ 2.0), and the other is in northeastern New Mexico within and surrounding the coalbed methane fields near Raton (44% of all events with Md ≥ 2.0). Only 5% of the larger earthquakes occurred in the Socorro Seismic Anomaly region. The remaining events were scattered throughout New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, eastern Arizona, northern Mexico, and western Texas.