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

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.