What made the deadly Venezuelan earthquakes different

npr ^ | 06/25/2026 | Katia Riddle

[BenLurkin]

[I]t appears these two quakes may have occurred on two separate faults. Several faults intersect in this tectonically complex region.

Historically, when experts evaluate earthquake risk, they haven't necessarily accounted for this multifault scenario, says Chris Goldfinger, a paleoseismologist at Oregon State University. "We always tend to kind of assume that earthquakes will just be on one fault and only on one fault," he says.

In 2016, a multifault event — the Kaikōura earthquake in New Zealand — took people by surprise, says Goldfinger, and changed scientists' understanding of how interconnected faults can trigger multiple ruptures. Assuming the Venezuelan quakes turn out to be similar, he says, it will be important information for those who study this kind of risk.

"The first one was completely out of the blue. We had no idea that could happen at all," says Goldfinger. "And here's a second one 10 years later where two really big earthquakes happened on separate faults."

Around the world there are other places with multiple faults. Parts of California's fault system, including the San Andreas Fault, have similarly complex tectonics.

[BenLurkin]

I have a dumb question: Why doesn’t the oil company build its own refinery right there near the oil fields. That way it could sell to everywhere in the world.

[central_va]

Refined petro products are more unstable and harder to ship safely. It can be done.

[crusty old prospector]

I am not sure as to the answer. Maybe it is safer to transport crude versus gasoline. I know that at one time there was a Venezuelan refiner called Citgo that was a partnership with an American company called Cities Service, hence the name. They may still be around. Hugo Chavez had something to do with them. This “oil” is so viscous that you probably couldn’t light it with a match. But there is a lot there.

So geologically, the tar belts (and the ones in Alberta) were large conventional oil fields but they were exhumed, or lifted, to the surface. There, the oils interacted with fresh water and formed the heavy oils. There are light-weight crudes trapped beneath the tar but they have mostly been depleted.

[Axenolith]

For essentially the same reason no one invests in nuclear power or reprocessing here. Political risk. Here it’s because of the fickle nature of 4-year cycles and potential regulatory or executive edicts (ameliorated significantly of late here but needs codification for an entity to start considering capital investment at generational scales).

There, everyone’s last huge expenditure got stolen, then allowed to decline into decrepitude. It’s cheaper and more secure to suck the crap-oil out of the ground and ship it here for processing in existing facilities than to risk building a 10+ billion $ facility under risk of possibly being stolen.

[fso301]

I have a dumb question: Why doesn’t the oil company build its own refinery right there near the oil fields. That way it could sell to everywhere in the world.

I have always assumed it had to do with controlling the exotic metals in the Venezuelan crude. If the crude is refined in Texas and Louisiana, those exotic metals which the U.S. does not have much of become American.

[AZJeep]

All depends on the buildings and the building codes.
In places, even substantially larger earthquakes are nonevents.
In others places, even substantially lesser ones kill thousands.