The Valencia cluster is named for the city of Valencia, capital of
Carabobo State in Venezuela. A cluster named Valencia in the same region
was published earlier in GCCEL but this version is a fresh start, based
on the large, damaging earthquake(s) of June 24, 2026. There has been
controversy as to whether it should be treated as two separate events or
one very complex event. It is treated as two events here. The initial
event of magnitude 7.2 Mw was followed by a second large pulse of energy
(7.5 Mw) after about 30 seconds. Because of interference from the coda
of the initial event, assembling a consistent arrival time dataset for
the second event was challenging. The arrival times reported by the ISC
were supplemented by a carefully curated set of arrival times by NEIC
analysts that helped resolve the second mainshock hypocenter, which
locates ~150 km east of the first one, just offshore of Caracas. The
cluster also includes a 6.6 MS earthquake on July 30, 1967 and a 6.4 Mw
earthquake on September 12, 2009. The June 24, 2026 earthquakes produced
surprisingly few aftershocks. 17 aftershocks over the following ~month
are included in the cluster but most of them do not have depth control
and are held at a default depth of 12 km. All other events in the
cluster have depth control from near-source and local-distance readings
and teleseismic depth phases in the case of the 1967 earthquake. The
distribution of local seismograph stations is quite good and the cluster
has a robust location calibration.
