Journal of Seismology 5: 575–593, 2001.

© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

575

Crustal structure and local seismicity in Colombia

Anibal Ojeda1,2 & Jens Havskov1

1 Institute
of Solid Earth Physics, University of Bergen, Allégaten 41, 5007 Bergen, Norway; 2 National

Seismological Network of Colombia, INGEOMINAS, Dg. 53 # 34-53 Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia

Received 27 June 2000; accepted in revised form 11 December 2000

Key words: Colombia, crustal structure, earthquake location, seismicity, travel time inversion

Abstract
Using P-wave travel time data from local seismicity, the crustal structure of the central and southern part of
Colombia was determined. A very stable and narrow range of possible velocity models for the region was obtained
using travel time inversion. This range of models was tested with earthquake locations to select the best velocity
model. The 1D velocity model proposed has five layers over a halfspace, with interfaces at depths of 4, 25, 32,
40 and 100 km and P-wave velocities of 4.8, 6.6, 7.0, 8.0, 8.1 and 8.2 km/sec, respectively. According to this
model the Moho lies at 32 km depth on average. For P-waves, the station corrections range from –0.62 to 0.44
sec and for S-wave they range from –1.17 to 0.62 sec. These low variations in station residuals indicate small
lateral velocity changes and therefore the velocity model found should be well suited for earthquake locations
and future starting model for 3D tomography studies. Using this new velocity model, the local earthquakes were
relocated. The shallow seismicity, <30 km, clearly shows the borders between tectonic plates and also the main
fault systems in the region. The deep seismicity, >80 km, shows two subduction zones in the country: the Cauca
subduction zone with a strike of N120◦E, dip of 35◦ and thickness of 35 km, and the Bucaramanga subduction
zone which has, for the northern part, a strike of N103◦E, dip of 27◦ and thickness undetermined and, for the
southern part, a strike of N115◦E, dip of 40◦ and thickness of 20 km. Based on differences of thickness of brittle
crust in the subducted slab and spatial distribution of the seismicity, the Cauca and Bucaramanga subduction zones
seem to represent independent processes. The Cauca subduction seems to be connected to the process of the Nazca
plate being subducted under the North Andes Block. In the Bucaramanga subduction zone, the transition between
southern and northern parts and changes in geometry of the slab seem to be gradual and there is no evidence of
a tear in the slab, however the local seismicity does not allow us to determine which plate or plates are being
subducted. The Bucaramanga nest appears to be included into the subducted slab.

Introduction oceanic crust. In the continental part, the thickness

of the crust presented varied between 30 and 40 km
and the P-wave velocities ranged from 6.0 to 6.8 km/s.
In general terms, few studies have been conducted on
Below the Moho the P-wave velocity was 8.0 km/s.
the determination of the crustal structure in and around
In the Caribbean part of the country, Bowland et al.
Colombia. In a local scale, the first important study
(1988), made a study of the upper crustal structure
was by Meissnar et al. (1976) as part of the Nariño
by multichannel seismic refraction profiles and found
project (Aldrich et al., 1973). They mapped crustal
that the oceanic crustal thickness varies from 10 km to
cross-sections for the southern part of the country in
15 km and P-wave velocities for the most superficial
an area between 1◦ N to 4◦ N and 82◦W to 76◦ W. The
layers are around 4.5 km/s and 7.0 km/s for the layer
cross-sections revealed that the crust in the western
above the Moho. Below the Moho, the P-wave velo-
and oceanic part of the profile had an average thick-
city was 8.2 km/s. In a continental scale, studies done
ness of 20 km, with P-wave velocities of 3.2 km/s
by Grand (1994) and Vdovin et al. (1999) presented
for the first 5 km and 6.8 km/s for the rest of the
576
some constrains about the structure of the crust and
mantle beneath South America, but in these studies
the crustal structure is still poorly resolved. In a global
scale, Mooney et al. (1998) presented a global crustal
structure (CRUST 5.1) study based on seismic refrac-
tion measurements. The study was done for a global
grid with cells of size 5◦ × 5◦ . Results of this study
showed the thickness of the crust for Colombia to be
between 30 km and 40 km.
In summary, the crustal structure in Colombia is
poorly known. The moho depth has been placed in
depths ranging from 30 to 40 km and velocity dis-
tribution has also been poorly resolved. In this study
we calculate a 1D crustal model for Colombia that im-
proves the accuracy in location of local seismicity and
at the same time serves as an input model for future
tomographic studies. Also we conduct a preliminary
analysis of hypocentral locations of the earthquakes
recorded by the Seismological network of Colombia,
analyzing the complex seismotectonic environment in
Colombia in order to improve the definition of regional
tectonic boundaries, subduction zones and seismic
sources for future seismic hazard studies in the region.
Tectonics
The complex tectonic environment of Colombia has
been a topic of debate and discussed without arriving
at a complete agreement (Taboada et al., 2000, Ta-
boada et al., 1998, Kellogg et al., 1995; Malave et
al., 1995; Van der Hilst et al., 1994; Freymueller et
al., 1993). Taboada et al. (2000) presented the latest
tectonic model for the region based on local seismo-
logical, tectonic and global tomographic data. The
model proposed the existence of a convergent envir-
onment between four plates: the North Andes block
as part of the South American Plate, the Panama
block, the Caribbean and the Nazca Plates. These
interactions produce three main tectonic features in
the region (Figure 1): The Colombian Nazca-Pacific
subduction, The North Andes block and the South-
ern Caribbean plate boundary zone (Freymueller et
al., 1993). The North Andes block is bounded by the
Colombia-Ecuador trench and Panamá on the west,
the South Caribbean deformed belt to the north, and
the Frontal fault system to the east (Pennington, 1981;
Kellogg et al., 1995; Adamek et al., 1988). It is mov-
ing northeastward relative to stable South America
and compressed in the EW direction, whereas in the
north it is converging with the Caribbean plate. The
South Caribbean deformed belt is the major bound-
ary between the Caribbean and South American plates
(Kellogs et al., 1995; Van der Hilst et al., 1994).
Pennington (1981), using seismicity and earth-
quake focal mechanisms, defined two distinct seg-
ments of subducted lithosphere inside Colombia. First,
the Bucaramanga segment, from 5.2◦N to 11◦ N, was
suggested to be a single Benioff zone formed by sub-
ducted lithosphere of the Caribbean seafloor northwest
of Colombia with a dip at 20◦ –25◦ toward N109◦E.
Second, the Cauca segment, south of 5.2◦ N, was
suggested to be a part of the Nazca plate underthrust-
ing South America, beginning at the trench from the
Panama-Colombia border down to Colombia-Ecuador
trench, with a dip of 35◦ toward N120◦E. In the north-
ern part of the North Andes block, significant displace-
ment has occurred on the Santa Marta-Bucaramanga
fault, which is a left lateral fault trending northwest
southeast (Figure 1). The Frontal fault system (Fig-
ure 1) consists of subparallel westward dipping faults.
Pennington (1981), based on a study of focal mechan-
isms, proposed that the North Andes block is separated
from the rest of South America along the Frontal fault
system.
Multichannel seismic profiles across the South
Caribbean deformed belt showed evidence of active
folding of the youngest sediments and also show that
the Caribbean basement has underthrust the deformed
belt (Lu and McMillen, 1983). Pennington (1981) has
interpreted this as a weakly defined Wadati-Benioff
zone resulting from the slow underthrusting of the
Caribbean crust (Taboada et al., 2000). The location of
the current Caribbean-South American plate boundary
has been controversial. Most of the historical seismi-
city has been located along the Bocono fault (Figure 1)
in the Venezuela Andes and it has been suggested
to put the Caribbean-South American plate boundary
there. However it has also been placed as far south as
the Frontal fault system and as far north as the South
Caribbean deformed belt.
Seismic network and data
The National Seismological Network of Colombia –
RSNC – started its operation in June 1993, and con-
sists of 20 seismological (Figure 2; Table 1). The
seismic stations are connected to the central station by
satellite. The seismometers are Teledyne Geotech S-
13 vertical component with a period of 1 s. The data
are digitized with a dynamic range 136 db, 16 bits
 577

Figure 1. Major tectonic features in Colombia. Dashed lines show surface trends of faults and plate boundaries (Taboada et al., 2000). The
arrows show the movement of the Nazca plate and Caribbean plate relative to the South American plate as presented by Freymueller et al.
(1993). The focal mechanisms shown represent the double couple part of the moment tensor solution by Harvard cmT file for some selected
earthquakes in the region. Circles represent epicenters of the shallow seismicity (h<30 km) recorded by the National Seismological Network
of Colombia (RSNC). The locations were obtained in this study. The RMS of the earthquakes presented is lower than 0.6 sec.
578

Figure 2. Location (solid stars) and codes of the RSNC stations. Circles represent the epicentral locations of the 475 best located earthquakes
used in the travel time inversion for the computation of the crustal velocity model for the region. Of those 475 earthquakes, 199 are shallow
(h<30 km) and the remaining 276 are deep (h>30 km). From the deep earthquakes, there are 68 located in the Nazca-South America subduction
zone, 196 located in the possible Caribbean-South America subduction, the remaining 12 events are located in the so-called Bucaramnaga nest
zone, slightly north of the BARC station.
 579
Table 1. Table showing the details of the seismic stations in the RSNC

Code Name Latitude Longitude Elevation Installation P wave S wave

(◦ ) (◦ ) (m) data correction correction
(sec) (sec)

ROSC El rosal 4.856 –74.330 3020 06/93 0.45 0.00

CHIC Chingaza 4.633 –73.731 3100 06/93 0.01 –0.11
BARC Barichara 6.643 –73.176 1860 06/93 –0.36 –0.85
RUSC La rusia 5.927 –73.075 3360 07/94 –0.16 –0.64
PRAC Prado 3.695 –74.901 410 06/93 –0.39 –0.51
TOLC Tolima 4.589 –75.340 2520 06/93 0.00 –0.32
CUM Cumbal 0.860 –77.842 3420 06/93 –0.21 –0.59
FLOC Florencia 1.514 –75.633 360 06/93 –0.62 –1.17
HELC Sta.helena 6.234 –75.548 2790 06/93 –0.17 –0.62
NORC Norcasia 5.596 –74.893 510 06/93 –0.17 –0.37
BETC Betania 2.681 –75.441 540 06/93 –0.17 –0.48
CRUC La cruz 1.499 –76.952 2740 06/93 –0.12 –0.71
MUNC Munchique 2.469 –76.957 3010 06/93 –0.19 –0.67
SOLC Solano 6.370 –77.458 50 06/93 –0.44 –0.47
MALC Malaga 4.014 –77.335 50 12/94 0.30 0.62
OCAC Ocaña 8.239 –73.319 1260 02/97 –0.30 –0.55
GUAC Guaviare 2.545 –72.627 220 02/97 –0.39 –1.07
KENC Kennedy 11.111 –74.048 2560 02/97 – –
TUMC Tumaco 1.835 –78.726 50 02/97 – –
CAPC Capurgana 8.604 –77.357 100 06/97 – –

resolution and 60 sps. For more details of the network,
see Nieto et al. (1996). The detection threshold is vari-
able around the country. Using Magnitude-Frequency
plots for sections for different places of the region,
it is seen that in the northern part of the country
(9◦ to 13◦ N) the detection threshold is 4.0, in the
western subduction areas (78◦ to 80◦ W) the detection
threshold is 3.5 and in the central part, with good
coverage, the magnitude threshold is 2.5. From June
1993 to June 1999, the RSNC have recorded 15581
earthquakes located mostly in the central part of the
country where the density of stations and earthquakes
is high.
Velocity model calculation
Data selection and preparation
The original data was located with HYPO71 (Lee et
al., 1978). In order to do further analysis the whole
data set was transferred to SEISAN (Havskov and
Ottemöller, 1999). We start by calculating the velo-
city ratio of the P-wave and S-wave Vp/Vs. Vp/Vs
was calculated for individual earthquakes using Wad-
ati diagrams (Figure 3a) and then the average for a
group of events. In order to include a Vp/Vs value in
the average, it was required that the minimum number
of stations was 6, maximum RMS of 0.5 sec for the
least square fit of the Wadati diagram and a minimum
correlation coefficient of the fit of 0.9. The average
Vp/Vs for the whole data set is 1.78 with a stand-
ard deviation of ± 0.05 Vp/Vs. A set of 1623 events
was used. This value 1.78 is slightly higher than the
value 1.74 used by RSNC for locations. The data was
then relocated with HYPOCENTER (Lienert, 1994)
using the original velocity model (RSNC model) and
the new Vp/Vs ratio. When the data was originally
located, the operator had manually selected for each
event a starting depth that gave a satisfactory location.
This could obviously not be done in the relocation so
each event was relocated by automatically trying 100
different initial depths in the range 0 to 200 km in 2 km
steps. We then selected the location with the lowest
RMS, for each event. In this way we ensure that the
locations do not depend on the selection of a single
initial depth. This factor is critical for the location of
earthquakes in Colombia, because in many cases the
580
Figure 3. (a) An example of a Wadati diagram for an earthquake
in the region. The horizontal axis starts at 00:21:00. Date of the
event: 1993/07/21. Origin time: 00:20:36.80. The slope of the dia-
gram shows a Vp/Vs of 1.78. (b) Reduced travel time curve of first
P-wave arrivals for earthquakes with hypocentral depth less than or
equal to 10 km. There are 753 measured travel times with epicentral
distances between 9 km to 593 km. The reduction is 10 km/sec. This
figure shows that the crust mainly consists of two layers with a cros-
sover distance at 165 km. The P-wave velocity before the crossover
distance is 6.4 km/sec and after is 8.0 km/sec.
solution of the problem of hypocentral location has
several local minimums.
The best-located earthquakes were then selected
using the following criteria: RMS lower than 0.5 s,
gap smaller than 180 degrees, error in depth location
less than 10 km, error in latitude and longitude loca-
tion less than 5 km, a minimum of 6 P-phase readings
and at least 4 S-phase readings. This gave a set of
475 earthquakes with depths from 0 to 190 km, dis-
tributed uniformly over central and western Colombia
and (Figure 2). This data set was used in all analysis
related with the velocity model calculation, which will
then be valid for the central-western part of Colombia.
Model from travel times curves
In order to determine a preliminary model, a travel
time curve was plotted using travel times arrivals for
earthquakes with depths less than 10 km (Figure 3b).
From that time curve, it seems that the crust mainly
consists of two layers. Performing a linear regression
of these data for the two different lines, we find P-
wave velocities of 6.4 km/s and 8.0 km/s respectively.
The initial segment of the travel time curve (distance
<20 km) is not defined, and since the prolongation of
the line with velocity 6.4 km/s does not cross (0,0), the
velocity in the top layer must be determined independ-
ently. Using a new set of events with depth less than
5 km, RMS lower than 1.0, and hypocentral distance
less than 20 km, the average velocity from travel times
was calculate to 4.4 km/s. Taking into account that the
average depth of the sources was 3 km, layer thickness
of 4 km and 28 km were calculated for the first and
second layer respectively, which gives a Moho depth
of 32 km.
This model of three layers is quite simple but gives
us a good idea about the geometry and average P-
wave velocity in the crust. These values will be used
in the determination of input models for the inversion
of the travel times. We also expect that the values ob-
tained from the inversion should be similar to those
calculated here.
Model from travel time inversion
In a further refinement of the crustal structure, we per-
form a simultaneous inversion for both velocity and
hypocenter parameters using the program VELEST
(Ellsworth, 1977; Kissling, 1988; Kissling et al., 1994;
Kissling et al., 1995). Basically we calculate the min-
imum 1-D velocity model (Kissling, 1988), which
means the 1-D velocity model with that it represents
the least squares solution of travel time residuals and
also the smaller dimension of the model space makes
it practical to calculate (Kissling, 1994). This model is
obtained by a trial and error process with various ini-
tial velocity models and with different combination of
damping factors, in order to prove the stability of the
results. The damping factors are the balance between
the solution that minimize the errors and the initial
model. In general, we follow the procedure sugges-
ted by Kissling (1994). For more details see Kissling
(1988) and Kissling et al. (1995).
 581

(a)

(b)

Figure 4. All the 3049 source-station pairs used in the travel time inversion procedure: (a) Surface projection, stars show station locations. (b)
E-W cross-section; triangles represent station locations. (c) N-S cross-section, triangles represent station locations.
582
(c)
Figure 4. Continued
For the inversion, we use the same earthquakes as
used for the travel time curves. The inversion is only
for P waves arrival times, because the seismometers of
the RSNC are short period vertical, thus the P read-
ings are more reliable than S readings. Three stations
CAPC, KENC and TUMC (Figure 2) were left out of
this study because of the few number of rays arriving
there. TOLC (Figure 2) was selected as the reference
station because it is in the middle of the network and
has the largest number of rays arriving there. Figure 4
a, b, and c present the horizontal and the two vertical
projections of the approximate ray paths, respectively.
These figures are the key to tell which regions the rep-
resented by the model, in Figure 4a a region between
1◦ to 8◦ N and from –78◦ to –72.5◦ is well covered,
Figure 4b and Figure 4c shows that this is well covered
for depths up to 160 km. In Figure 2 was presented
the distribution of the seismicity, which is: 199 shal-
low events (42% of the 475 events) h<30 km, and
276 deep events (58% of the 475 events) h>30 km.
Of those 276 deep events: 68 belong to the Nazca-
South America subduction zone, 176 belong to the
subduction zone southern part of the BARC station
and the rest 12 events are located in the so-called Bu-
caramanga Nest. We believe that this distribution gives
a very good representation of the seismicity pattern on
the region and also good ray coverage.
A critical factor for the inverse problem is the
selection of the initial model. The following initial
velocity models were used: The first is a model with
low velocities, the second is a model with high ve-
locities, the third is the RSNC model, and the last
is a velocity model with constant velocity. The geo-
metry of our initial models was defined to take into
account the boundaries defined by the RSNC model,
a boundary for the Moho around 32 km defined in
the travel time analysis, and other boundaries given
by other studies (Meissner et al., 1976; Bowland et
al., 1988; Grand, 1994; Mooney et al., 1998; Vdovin
et al., 1999). Initially thicknesses of each layer in the
upper crust were assumed to be 2 km and in the lower
crust 5 km. The initial models are shown in Figure 5.
In the first layer the range of velocities among different
models is 3.5 km/s to 7 km/s, in the deepest layer the
interval velocity range from 6.0 km/s to 9.3 km/s. With
these initial models we are covering a broad range of
velocity and geometrical distributions.
The inversion analysis was performed for each
model with different damping factors of 0.01, 0.05 and
0.1 for the velocity model and a damping factor of 0.01

Figure 5. Initial velocity models used as input for the travel time
inversion. Four models were used: RSNC velocity model (thin con-
tinuous line), model with high velocities (thick dashed line), model
with low velocities (thin dashed line) and model with a constant
velocity (thick continuous line).
for hypocentral parameters. We choose that values in
order to balance a minimization of the errors in travel
time residuals with a realistic solution for a velocity
model. Very low values of damping near to zero may
produce unrealistic values in the velocity model solu-
tion; in contrast very high values can overdamp the
solution and a resulting model fix to the initial model
(Menke, 1989). During this process we reduced the
number of layers by combining adjacent layers with
similar velocities. We also avoid low velocities lay-
ers because they usually introduce instabilities and the
location programs usually cannot use models with low
velocity layers.
We end the inversions once we obtain a reasonable
decrement of the initial RMS average and earthquake
locations, station delays, velocity values do not change
significantly from one iteration to the next. Figure 6
presents the final model reached for each of the initial
models proposed. As it can be seen, the layer bound-
aries are well defined, while there is some variation
in the velocities. At the surface the velocities range
between 4.2 km/s to 5.3 km/s with a thickness of 4 km
for the first layer and this may be related to the base-
583
Figure 6. Velocity profiles calculated for travel time inversion,
based on starting model shown in Figure 5. This figure indicates
and defines a narrow interval of velocity in each layer. RSNC velo-
city model (thin continuous line), model with high velocities (thick
dashed line), model with low velocities (thin dashed line) and model
with constant velocity (thick continuous line).
ment average for the region under consideration. The
second layer goes down to 25 km with a velocity range
between 6.4 km/s and 6.7 km/s, the lower boundary of
this layer is related to the Conrad discontinuity. The
third layer bottoms at 32 km with velocities between
6.9 and 7.5 km/s. A fourth layer is seen to 40 km with
a very constant velocity of 8.0 km/s, the fifth layer is
going down to 100 km with little change of the velo-
city 8.1 km/s. The half space is defined after 100 km
with a velocity of 8.2 km/s.
With this inversion we established a narrow velo-
city interval for a final velocity model (see Table 2,
column named Velocity range). In the following steps
we will find a final velocity model by testing all
the possible models included in the interval already
defined.
Selecting a final model
Using VELEST we got a different output model for
each of the input models. All the output models look
similar and define the geometry of the Colombian
crust. However, the velocities of the layers show slight
584
Table 2. Table showing the velocity models used in grid search procedure. For each
layer: the depth, thickness, ranges of velocity, step and final velocity range and selected
velocity are given. The velocity ranges are based on the four output models from the
travel time inversion. The velocity step is the increment used in the grid search. The
final velocity ranges are based on the model that present a similar lowest average of
RMS after the grid search. The selected velocity is the proposed best model

Layer Depth Thickness Velocity Velocity Final Selected

(km) (km) range step velocity velocity
(km/s) (km/s) (km/s) (km/s)

1 4 4 4.2–5.3 0.1 4.8–5.1 4.8

2 25 21 6.4–6.7 0.1 6.6 6.6
3 32 7.5 6.9–7.5 0.1 6.9–7.1 7.0
4 40 7.5 7.8–8.1 0.05 8.0 8.0
5 100 60 8.1–8.2 0.05 8.1 8.1
Half space 8.2–8.3 0.05 8.2 8.2

variation from model to model (Figure 6). In order to

choose the ‘Best Model’, the earthquakes used for in-
version, were located using SEISAN with the range
of models found in the inversion (Table 2, column
named Velocity range). Since the ‘Best Model’ will
be used for earthquake location, the model with the
overall lower residual and with better agreement with
the previous results of the travel time curves analysis
will be chosen as ‘Best Model’.
The velocity models tested have a fixed geometry
of 6 layers and velocity intervals as determined in the
travel time inversion. Table 2 presents for each layer,
the range of velocities used, the step of variation of the
velocities, and the final velocity reached for the layer.
During the location of the earthquakes, P and S phases
were used since the model will be used for earthquake
location.
In total, 21168 velocity models were tested and the
‘Best Model’ was selected using the minimum average
RMS of all events as criteria. Naturally some models
present similar lowest average of RMS (Those models
are described in the Table 2, under the column named
Final velocity), so using the information provided by
travel time curves analysis we decided which velocity
and which model is the best. Actually, the groups of Figure 7. Comparison of the velocity model proposed in this study
the models with similar lowest RMS present very con- (thick line) and the RSNC model (thin line). The model obtained in
stant velocities for layers below the Moho. For the this study has five layers over a halfspace, with interfaces at depths
of 4, 25, 32 40 and 100 km and P-wave velocities of 4.8, 6.6, 7.0,
first layer, the range of velocities is between 4.8 to 8.0, 8.1 and 8.2 km/sec, respectively. On the other hand, the RSNC
5.1 km/s, for the second layer the velocity of 6.6 km/s model has four layers over a halfspace, with interfaces at depths
was very constant but for the third layer, the velocities of 2, 5, 25 and 35 and P-wave velocities of 4.0, 5.5, 6.4, 7.1 and
8.1 km/sec, respectively.
range between 6.9 to 7.1 km/s. For the first layer we
decided to take 4.8 km/s as velocity of the layer since
it is the nearest value to the value found in travel time

analysis 4.4 km/s and also it is the average of the final
models reached in the travel time inversion. For the
second layer we keep the velocity of 6.6 km/s as ob-
tained before. For the third layer we choose 7.0 km/s
because it is the average of the range of velocities
found. For layers fourth, fifth and sixth we keep the
values previously found of 8.0 km/s, 8.1 km/s and
8.2 km/s respectively. Figure 7 shows a comparison
between our Best velocity model (Table 2, column
named Selested velocity) and the RSNC model, as is
presented in general there are differences in geometry,
velocity and number of layers, a more detailed com-
parison of results are presented later. As a final test, a
new run was made where the depth of Moho was var-
ied from 26 km to 39 km in steps of 1 km and keeping
the same gradient of velocity. The result confirms that
a Moho depth of 32 km gave the lowest RMS. The
proposed best velocity model may be used for the loc-
ation of local earthquakes in Colombia and also serves
as a reference initial model for 3D tomography stud-
ies. Naturally the velocity model proposed here is an
average of the crustal structure below central-western
Colombia, which is expected to be more complex due
to the seismotectonic environment.
Station correction calculations
Using the new velocity model, we perform a joint
hypocenter determination (JHD) and station correc-
tions calculation using VELEST. The station correc-
tions represent deviations of the velocity model, and
positive and negative station corrections generally cor-
respond to local low and high velocity anomalies in
the area of the recording station with respect to the
station reference. The station corrections are strongly
related to the local site condition and topography at the
seismological stations.
The set of data used here is the same used in the
travel time inversion and selection of best model with
P and S readings. Although TOLC station is located in
an area of colluvium and volcanic ash and also is one
of the highest stations in the network, it was selected as
reference station because of its location at the middle
of the network and having the largest number of read-
ings available. These last two conditions allow better
reliability in the final results.
The station corrections were calculated for P and S
wave. The values of the station corrections are in the
interval of –0.62 to 0.44 s. for P waves and –1.17 to
0.62 s. for S waves. Table 1 presents the final station
corrections and Figure 8 a and c presents the contours
585
of station corrections for P and S wave respectively.
The contours have basically the same shape. We also
calculate the average residual for single locations of
each event and the shape of contours for P and S waves
remain the same, Figure 8 b and d, respectively. This
result shows that the stations correction calculated by
JHD and the average residuals for single locations
are well related and the stations correction proposed
are not affected by the selection of the TOLC station
as a reference station, since the average residuals for
single locations does not depended of any single sta-
tion. Looking into the values of the station correction
(Table 1), we see that most of the values are negatives,
we think that this is related to the soil and topographic
conditions of the station in relation of the rest of the
station of the network. Considering the complexities
of the tectonics of Colombia, the variations in station
residuals seem quite small. This might indicate that
for the area under study, the crustal model proposed
is fairly homogeneous and should, therefore, be well
suited for earthquake location.
Relocation and analysis of local seismicity
In order to see the improvements of the velocity model
and station correction proposed in this study, we re-
locate the seismicity using three different velocity
models: First, the RSNC model without station cor-
rections; Second, the RSNC model with station cor-
rections, these station corrections were calculated by
inversion (VELEST), using the 475 best located earth-
quakes and keeping fixed the RSNC model. Third, the
model and station corrections proposed in this study.
Figure 9 presents a comparison between RMS distri-
butions obtained. It is clear that there is an increment
in the number of earthquakes with low RMS since the
distribution curves of RMS of locations with the model
from this study is moved back with reference to the
two other curves for locations with the RSNC model
with and without station corrections. This implies a
general decrease in the RMS of the events, signifying
an improvement in the RMS location. Actually, for
the events presented in Figure 9 (RMS lower than 1 s)
the average RMS for location with the velocity model
from this study is 35% and 20% lower than the average
RMS for location with the RSNC model without and
with station corrections, respectively.
Table 3 and Figure 10 presents the spatial differ-
ence between the location with the model proposed
in this study and the original ones. Table 3 presents
586

Figure 8. Contour lines for station corrections and average travel time residuals. Solid stars denote locations of the stations used. (a) P-wave
station corrections, form –0.62 to 0.44 sec, contour lines each 0.1 sec. (b) P-wave average travel time residuals, from –0.22 to 0.50 sec, contour
lines each 0.1 sec. (c) S-wave station corrections, from –1.17 to 0.62 sec, contour lines each 0.2 sec. (d) S-wave average travel time residuals,
from –0.73 to 0.16 sec, contour lines each 0.05 sec. The variations in stations correction are related to the local structure and topography in
each station.
 587
Table 3. Differences in depth, calculated as the depth
of new locations (best model) minus the depth of ori-
orientations: Zone a, where most of the seismicity is
ginal locations (RSNC). Ranges of the differences and shallow and most of the changes tend in SW direction,
number of earthquakes for each range are shown in the in a place of interaction between the Panama Block,
table Nazca Plate and The North Andes Block. Zone b, also
with shallow seismicity that is tending to reach the
Difference in depth (km) Number of earthquakes
Colombia-Ecuador trench. Zone c and d, with deep
<–100 6 seismicity possible related with the subduction process
–100 to –50 22 in the region, in both places the seismicity in the west
–50 to –20 123 tend to the west getting less deep and seismicity in the
–20 to –5 1612 east tend to the east getting deeper, this behaviour can
–5 to 0 3026 be associated to the EW direction of the subduction
0 to 5 2111 processes. In general terms we believe that our new
5 to 20 917
locations are more accurate than the locations done
20 to 50 179
initially by RSNC.
50 to 100 232
A complete analysis of the seismotectonics of
> 100 150
Colombia is beyond of the scope of this study, how-
ever we will make a brief description of the relocated
local seismicity and the tectonic implications. Given
the tectonics situation and distribution in depth of the
seismicity, we preformed this analysis in two groups:
the shallow seismicity with depths less than 30 km,
and deep seismicity with depths between 80 km and
200 km. We disregard the seismicity with intermediate
depths, between 30 km and 80 km, since these earth-
quakes are insignificant in number and sparse in the
region.

Shallow seismicity

Figure 1 presents the seismicity with depths less than

Figure 9. Number of earthquakes versus RMS. The thick line rep-
resents the velocity model with station corrections from this study.
The dashed line represents locations using the RSNC velocity model
with station correction calculated for this model. The thin line rep-
resents locations using the RSNC velocity model without station
corrections. As is shown in the figure, the locations with the new
model have a lower RMS. In average the locations with the best
velocity model are 35% lower than the locations with the RSNC
without station correction, and 20% lower than the locations with
the RSNC with station correction.
the differences in depth; as it is shown most of the
earthquakes have differences among –20 to 20 km,
larger differences are related to mislocations between
shallow to deep events or vice versa which is crit-
ical in order to analyze the tectonic of the region.
Figure 10, presents the epicentral changes from the
original locations to the new locations. In this fig-
ure we identify four places with a significant trend in
30 km and RMS lower than 0.6 s. Most of this seis-
micity clearly depicts two features: the borders of
the main blocks and the main fault systems within
the interior of the country. In the west and the Pa-
cific coast, most of the seismicity is associated with
the subduction of the Nazca plate under the South
American plate. The seismicity shows that most of
the activity is concentrated in the southern part of the
subduction zone, where important earthquakes have
occurred in the past, and is connected to the Colom-
bian – Ecuadorian Trench. In the east, the seismicity
confirms that the Frontal fault system as the bound-
ary between the North Andes Block and the South
American Plate as previously defined. In the north,
the seismicity cannot confirm the South Caribbean de-
formed belt as boundary. In the interior part of the
country, the seismicity indicates the most important
active fault systems. In the central part of country the
Romeral and Cauca fault system seems to be related to
the major part of the seismic activity. The Salinas sys-
tem at the eastern part the Cordillera Oriental appears
588
to be very active. In the northern part the Santa Marta
– Bucaramanga fault shows some few earthquakes.
The Oca fault shows low activity due to the bad cov-
erage and the high detection magnitude threshold of
4.0 of the RSNC in this part of the country. In gen-
eral the shallow seismicity confirms and delineates the
major tectonic boundaries and main fault systems in
the region, however the south Caribbean deformed
belt boundary can not be defined due to the lack of
seismicity recorded during the time interval studied.
Deep seismicity
Figure 11 presents the deep seismicity, with depths
between 80 and 200 km and RMS values lower than
0.6 s. There are two main places where signific-
ant activity is occurring: first in the western part of
the country, between 3.2◦ and 5.6◦N and 75.4◦ and
77.8◦W, a region that is coincident to the previously
defined Cauca segment by Pennington (1981) and is
related to the subduction process between the Nazca
plate and South American plate (Taboada et al., 1998;
Taboada et al., 2000); second is the north east part
of the country, between 5.0◦ to 9.5◦ N and 74.5◦ to
72.5◦W, a region called the Bucaramanga segment in-
cluding the Bucaramnaga nest, that has been discussed
in several studies (Taboada et al., 1998; Taboada et al.,
2000; Pennington, 1981; van der Hilts et al., 1994;
Malave et al., 1995; Frohlich et al., 1995; Schneider
et al., 1987). Most of these studies agree that this
segment is related to the subduction process of the
Caribbean plate under the South American plate.
In the Cauca segment, we analyzed the geometry
of the subducted slab based on epicentral distribution
and depth of the best located earthquakes. We selected
the earthquakes inside the region defined above, with
depths larger than 50 km, more than 5 stations, RMS
lower than 0.5 s., errors in depth lower than 10 km and
errors in longitude and latitude lower than 5 km. With
the selected seismicity we performed a JHD location
with VELEST. From the geometry of the seismicity
and using several depth profiles, the strike of the sub-
ducted slab was determined to be N120◦E (± 5◦ ). The
seismicity of the depth profile striking at N120◦E (line
segment A-A’ in Figure 11 and Figure 12) has a dip
of 35◦ (± 5◦ ) and a thickness of 35 km (± 5 km).
The strike and dip are in agreement with the previous
values calculated by Pennington (1981) and Taboada
et al. (1998). The thickness of this slab has not been
reported before.
For the Bucaramanga segment, we made our ana-
lysis using seismicity selected under different criteria
since in that region the quality and quantity of the
recorded data are different depending on the geograph-
ical location. To the northern part of the segment the
quantity and quality decrease due to the lack of cover-
age of the seismic network. In the southern part of the
segment, the seismicity has better quality.
The northern part of segment, was defined between
8.0◦ and 9.5◦N, and 72.5◦ to 74.5◦W and we selected
for this region earthquakes with more than 4 stations,
depths between 90 km and 180 km, RMS lower than
0.5 s., errors in depths less than 15 km and errors in
longitudes and latitudes less than 10 km. The southern
part was defined between 5.0◦ and 8.0◦N, and 72.5◦
and 74.5◦W, the selected earthquakes were registered
by more than 5 stations with depths between 90 km
and 180 km, RMS lower than 0.5 s., error in depth
less than 10 km and error in longitude and latitude less
than 5 km. This southern part of the slab includes the
Bucaramanga nest, located between 6.70◦ and 6.85◦N
and 73.15◦ and 72.95◦W. The location and shape of
the segments in map view are shown in Figure 11. For
each of these two data sets and for the combined data
set we performed a separate JHD location. The result-
ing locations did not present considerable differences
between the single data sets and the combined data set,
and the hypocentral differences were less than 2 km.
Therefore, we used the JHD locations of the combined
data set to make our analysis.
Using the geometry of the seismicity and making
several profiles at different strike angles, we found
for the southern part of the slab, an average strike
of N115◦E (± 5◦ ), and a dip angle of the subducted
slab of 40◦ (± 5◦ ) with a slab thickness of 20 km
(± 5 km), line segment B-B’ in Figure 11 and Fig-
ure 13. As shown in the Figure 13 the Bucaramanga
nest is part of this slab. In comparison with previous
studies, the strike that we calculated for the southern
part of the segment is larger than the previous values
reported by Pennington (1981) and van der Hilts et
al. (1994), N109◦E and N102◦E (± 2◦ ) respectively.
The dip angle agrees with the one estimated by van
der Hilts et al. (1994), 50◦ (± 2◦ ), but is different to
that proposed by Pennington (1981) 20◦ –25◦.
For the northern part of the segment we find that
the slab strikes at N103◦E (± –5◦) and we calculate a
dip angle of 27◦ (± 5◦ ), see line segment C-C’ in Fig-
ure 11 and Figure 14. The thickness is uncertain due to
the quality and quantity of the data, however it is less
than 40 km. The strike calculated by us agrees with
 589

Figure 10. Epicentral changes between new locations and the original location. Only differences larger than 15 km are plotted, the arrows go
from the original to the new location. In general we observe four zones (boxes a,b,c and d) with a significant trend in the orientation. Zone a
has shallow earthquakes, the differences trend in a S-W direction in a place where is the interaction between Panama block, Nazca plate and
the North Andes block. Zone b has also shallow earthquakes, which seems to change oriented towards the Colombia-Ecuador trench. In zone
c there are deep seismicity, which is related with the Nazca-South America subduction zone. In general, the earthquakes in the west tend to
change their location in a westward direction and earthquakes in the east tend in an easterly direction. Zone d represents deep seismicity, which
is probably related with the South Bucaramanga subduction zone. In general, the earthquakes in the west tend to change their location in a S-W
direction and the earthquakes in the east tend in a north-easterly direction. For the rest of the country we do not see any preferred trend.
590

Figure 11. Epicentral locations of deep earthquakes. The shading of the circle is related to the depth of the earthquake as it is shown in the scale.
Solid lines CAUCA, BUCARAMANGA SOUTH and BUCARAMANGA NORTH indicate the depth profiles shown in subsequent figures.

Figure 12. Depth cross section A-A’ of the earthquakes along the
CAUCA line (see also Figure 11). The cross section shows a sub-
ducting slab striking at N120◦ E, dipping at 35◦ and with a thickness
of 35 km.
Figure 13. Depth cross section B-B’ of the earthquakes along the
BUCARAMANGA SOUTH line (see also Figure 11). The cross
section shows a subducting slab striking at N115◦ E, dipping at 40◦
and with a thickness of 20 km. The Bucaramanga nest is indicated
in the figure and this appears to be included into the subducted slab.
591
Figure 14. Depth cross section C-C’ of the earthquakes along the
BUCARAMANGA NORTH line (see also Figure 11). The cross
section shows a subducting slab striking at N103◦ E and dipping at
27◦ .
the previous values presented by Pennington (1981)
and van der Hilts et al. (1994), N109◦E and N102◦E,
respectively. About the dip angle, our value coincided
with the 20◦ –25◦, ∼25◦ , and 17◦ (± –3◦ ) previously
calculated by Pennington (1981), Malave et al. (1995)
and van der Hilts et al. (1994), respectively.
Making depth profiles across the transition zone
between North and South Bucaramanga zone we real-
ized that the changes in geometry are gradual and
smooth. Furthermore, there is no evidence of a tear in
the slab, which leads us to presume that Bucaramnaga
North and South belong to the same subduction pro-
cess, implying that they are part of the same subducted
slab. This result agrees with the geodynamic model of
the northern Andes proposed by Taboada, et al. 2000.
However we cannot determine which tectonic plates
are involved in this process.
In order to analyze the geometry of the seismi-
city of the Bucaramanga nest we made a selection of
events inside of the nest with depths between 145 km
to 165 km, recorded by more than 7 stations, RMS
lower than 0.4 s., errors in depth less than 10 km and
errors in longitude and latitude less than 5 km. After
that we performed a JHD location and made several
profiles of the seismicity, there was no discernable dip.
However the Bucaramanga nest seems to be part of the
subduction process in the Bucaramanga slab.
592
Conclusions
In this study, a new average crustal model for south
and central Colombia has been elaborated. The pro-
posed velocity model is based on extensive local data
and it presents a major improvement in knowledge
about crustal structure in the region. Although the
model is only 1D, it has been demonstrated that it
represents a major improvement for earthquake loc-
ations. Obviously, the real 3D crust in Colombia is
more complex than the model presented here and
the Moho depths, in particular, are expected to be
smaller near the coast as seen in the few published
studies. However, for the region in which this model
is used, it seems to be fairly representative consid-
ering the small station residuals and the low RMS
of the earthquake locations in general. The model
should therefore represent a good starting model for
tomographic inversion.
The 3D geometry of the seismicity using local
data seems very similar to what has been obtained
earlier with global and local data confirming that the
new local model must be accurate. With the local
seismicity, it has been possible to further refine the
geometry of the subducting slabs. For the 3 main sec-
tions Cauca, Bucaramanga North and Bucaramanga
South, the slab geometries as defined from the seismi-
city, indicate planar plates with well defined geometry.
The crustal thickness of the subducted slabs, inferred
from seismicity, is 35 km for Cauca segment, 20 km
for Bucaramanga South and undetermined for Bucara-
manga North. Furthermore, the Bucaramanga North
and South sections seem to belong to the same subduc-
tion process because of the gradual, smooth change in
geometry and no evidence of a tear in the slab, im-
plying that the Bucaramanga North and South form a
continuous slab. However, the origin of the Bucara-
manga subduction is still unclear since we do not have
evidence of which plates are involved in the process.
For the Bucaramanga nest, the new data give the
highest resolution of any data available. The data show
that the seismicity of the Bucaramanga nest is part of
the Bucaramanga Subduction. Furthermore, the seis-
micity of the nest does not show a clear indication of
a preferential geometry.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Maryluz Fonseca, Samuel
Martinez, Juan Duarte and Maria Luisa Bermudez
from INGEOMINAS with helping us to obtain the
information of the RSNC. Thanks to Kuvvet Atakan,
Lars Ottemöller, Vunganai Midzi, Margaret Grandison
and Tarek Kebeasy for insightful reviews of the manu-
script. Two anonymous reviewer’s comments greatly
improved this work. The Government of Norway
scholarship program and INGEOMINAS supported
this work.
References
Adamek, S., Frohlich, C. and Pennington, W.D., 1988, Seismicity
of the Caribbean-Nazca boundary: Constraints on block tectonics
of the Panamá region, J. Geophys. Res. 93, 2053–2075.
Aldrich, L.T., James, D.E., Linde, A.T., Ocola, G.R., Poe, G.R.,
Sacks, I.S. and Simoni, D., 1973, Project Nariño, Carnegie
Institute Washington, Yearb. 72, 247–249.
Bowland, C.L. and Rosencrantz, E., 1988, Upper crustal structure
of the western Colombian basin, Caribbean Sea, Geol. Soc. Am.
Bull. 100, 534–546.
Ellsworth, W.L., 1977, Three-Dimensional Structure of the Crust
and Mantle Beneath the Island of Hawaii, Ph.D. thesis, Mass.
Inst. of Technol., Cambridge.
Freymueller, J.T., Kellogg, J.N. and Vega, V., 1993, Plate motions
in the North Andean region, J. Geophys. Res. 98, 21853–21863.
Frohlich, C., Kadinsky-Cade, K., and Davis, S.D., 1995, A reex-
amination of the Bucaramnaga, Colombia, earthquake nest, Bull.
Seismol. Soc. Am. 85, 1622–1634.
Grand, S.P., 1994, Mantle shear structure beneath the Americas and
surrounding oceans, J. Geophys. Res. 99, 11591–11621.
Havskov, J. and Ottemöller, L., 1999, SEISAN: The Earthquake
Analysis Software, Version 7.0. Institute of Solid Earth Physics,
University of Bergen, Norway, 226 pp.
Kellogg, J.N. and Vega, V., 1995, Tectonic development of Panama,
Costa Rica, and the Colombian Andes: Constraints from Global
Positioning System geodetic studies and gravity, Spec. Pap.
Geol. Soc. Am. 295, 75–90.
Kissling, E., 1988, Geotomography with local earthquake data, Rev.
Geophys. 26, 659–698.
Kissling, E., Ellsworth, W.L., Eberhart-Phillips, D. and Krad-
olfer, U., 1994, Initial reference models in local earthquake
tomography, J. Geophys. Res. 99, 19635–19646.
Kissling, E., Kradolfer, U. and Maurer, H., 1995, VELEST User’s
Guide – Short Introduction, Institute of geophysics and Swiss
seismological service, ETH Zürich, 25 pp.
Lee, W.H.K. and Lahr, J.C., 1978, HYPO71 (revised): A Computer
Program for Determining Hypocenter, Magnitude, and First Mo-
tion Pattern of Local Earthquakes, USGS Open File Report
75–311, 448 pp.
Lienert, B.R., 1994, HYPOCENTER 3.2: A Computer Program for
Locating Earthquakes Locally, Regionally and Globally, Hawaii
Institute of Geophysics & Planetology, 70 pp.
Lu, R.S. and McMillen, K.J., 1983, Multichannel seismic survey
of the Colombia Basin and adjacent margins, In: Watkins, J.S.
and Drake, C.L. (eds), Studies in Continental Margin Geology,
AAPG Men. 34, pp. 395–410.
Malavé, G. and Suárez, G., 1995, Intermediate-depth seismicity in
northern Colombia and western Venezuela and its relationship to
Caribbean plate subduction, Tectonics. 14, 617–628.
Meissner, R.O., Flueh, E.R., Stibane, F. and Berg, E., 1976,
Dynamics of the active plate boundary in southwest Colombia

according to recent geophysical measurements, Tectonophysics.
35, 115–136.
Menke, W., 1989, Geophysical Data Analysis: Discrete Inverse
Theory, Academic Press, New York.
Mooney, W.D., Laske, G. and Masters, T.G., 1998, CRUST 5.1: A
Global Crust Model at 5◦ × 5◦ , J. Geophys. Res. 103, 727–747.
Nieto, A. and Escallon, J., 1996, The new Colombian seismological
network, Geophys. Int. 35, 53–57.
Pennington, W.D., 1981, Subduction of the Eastern Panama Basin
and Seismotectonics of Northwestern South America, J. Geo-
phys. Res. 86, 10753–10770.
Schneider, J.F., Pennington, W.D. and Meyer, R.P., 1987, Mi-
croseismicity and focal mechanisms of the intermediate-depth
Bucaramanga nest, Colombia, J. Geophys. Res. 92, 13913–
13926.
593
Taboada, A., Dimaté, C. and Fuenzalida, A., 1998, Sismotectonica
de Colombia: deformacion continental activa y subduccion, Fis.
Tierra 10, 111–147.
Taboada, A., Rivera, L.A., Fuenzalida, A., Cisternas, A., Philip, H.,
Bijwaard, H., Olaya, J. and Rivera, C., 2000, Geodynamics of the
northern Andes: Subductions and intracontinental deformation
(Colombia), Tectonics 19(5), 787–813.
Van der Hilts, R. and Mann, P., 1994, Tectonic implications of tomo-
graphic images of subducted lithosphere beneath northwestern
South America, Geology. 22, 451–454.
Vdovin, O., Rial, J.A., Levshin, A.L. and Ritzwoller, M.H.,
1999, Group-velocity tomography of South America and the
surrounding oceans, Geophys. J. Int. 136, 324–340.