ISSN 2079-3537      

 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Scientific Visualization, 2018, volume 10, number 3, pages 121 - 132, DOI: 10.26583/sv.10.3.09

Animation: Crustal Deformation in the Nicoya Peninsula Associated with the September 5th, 2012 Earthquake

Authors: F. Hernandez-Castro1,A,B, J. Monge-Fallas2,A, M. Mendez-Morales3,A, M. Protti-Quesada4,C

A Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica, Costa Rica

B Hochschule fur Gestaltung Schwabisch Gmund, Germany

C Observatorio Vulcanologico y Sismologico de Costa Rica, Universidad Nacional

1 ORCID: 0000-0003-3589-4588, franhernandez@itcr.ac.cr

2 ORCID: 0000-0002-1651-3543, jomonge@itcr.ac.cr

3 ORCID: 0000-0003-1919-141X, mamendez@itcr.ac.cr

4 ORCID: 0000-0001-9818-0051, marino.protti.quesada@una.cr

 

Abstract

For the past fifteen years, the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI) in cooperation with American Universities, has been recording crustal deformation data prior a potential earthquake in the Nicoya Peninsula, anticipation which came true on September 5th, 2012 with the occurrence of a 7.6 moment magnitude (Mw) earthquake.
The historical importance of this earthquake is based on continuous monitoring of the Nicoya Peninsula before, during and after the earthquake, making it one of the best documented earthquake in history. The objective of this project is to visualize earthquake data in order to view displacement in two and three dimensions. Another goal is to make the method for showing the behavior of the crust during the earthquake, more intuitive. The target question of the visualizations is only one: to show how the earth?s crust moved previous and during the earthquake in each of the affected areas.
We know of no other visualization that use a 3D environment to visualize one earthquake with actual data in this detail level.

 

Keywords: data visualization, data interpretation earthquakes, crustal deformation, information visualization, relationship data, tectonic plates, visualization paradigms.