Data Event Response to the January 10, 2018 M7.5 Earthquake 44km E of Great Swan Island, Honduras

Written by Beth Bartel
22 January 2018

Event Summary

A Mw 7.5 earthquake occurred at 02:51:31 UTC on January 10, 2018 (20:51:31 January 9, 2018 local) 44km E of Great Swan Island, Honduras.

For more information, see the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program event page.

UNAVCO Response

GPS Data
UNAVCO downloaded high-rate 1-sps (1 Hz) and 5-sps (5 Hz) GPS/GNSS data from 18 stations and 1-sps (1 Hz) data only from an additional three stations in response to the M7.5 earthquake 44km E of Great Swan Island, Honduras, on 2017-01-10 (Figure 2). Stations downloaded include 14 COCONet stations and additional stations operated by OVSICORI, within 1000 km of the earthquake's epicenter. Data were downloaded for a ±3-hour period around the event (7 hours total, from 23:00 - 05:59 UTC). These data are available from the UNAVCO high rate data page. Note: Six of these stations stream data in real time: TGMX, UNPM, CN23, CN30, CN12, and SSIA; to request access to these and other RT-GPS stations operated by UNAVCO please send an email request to rtgpsunavco.org.

As part of this response, UNAVCO and partners reestablished communications to several COCONet stations. Most significantly, UNAVCO's Honduran collaborators Jonathan Luis Eveline Funes and Luis Palacios from Universidad Politécnica de Ingeniería – UPI contacted the Honduran Navy, who in turn requested that military personnel on Swan Island reboot the BGAN satellite terminal for station CN18. The reboot successfully brough CN18 back online and enabled the download of high-rate data prior to and after the event. The GPS receiver had been running continuously throughout the duration of the event. This station is located in very close proximity to the earthquake's epicenter and preliminary results from the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory show an offset of more than 1.5 meters (Figure 4).

Stations downloaded:
CN18 (COCONet)
GCFS (COCONet)
LCSB (COCONet)
TGMX (COCONet) (real-time)
UNPM (COCONet) (real-time)
CN24 (COCONet)
CNC0 (COCONet)
CN23 (COCONet) (real-time)
CN30 (COCONet) (real-time)
CN21 (COCONet)
CNG2 (Telica)
MOM0 (Telica)
KIOS (Telica)
SCW2 (Telica)
ELMA (Telica)
MANA (COCONet)
CGUI (Telica)
CN12 (COCONet) (real-time)
SSIA (COCONet) (real-time)
ELVI (Costa Rica / OVSICORI)
CN25 (COCONet)
CN35 (COCONet)

Borehole Strainmeter Data
UNAVCO has produced a fully processed 1-sps borehole strainmeter (BSM) dataset spanning the time period of this event, available from the PBO borehole strainmeter event response page.