On September 2017, Mexico City was hit with a massive earthquake, one with magnitude not seen since 1985. It is already known that Mexico is in a earthquake hot-spot zone because it is near a subduction zone where tectonic plates are constantly colliding and rubbing off on each other. However, there is an underlying reason that explains much of this distress. It has been revealed that Mexico City is actually lying on top of an ancient lake bed. Because Mexico City is on top of a lake bed, when an earthquake occurs, the effects are more violent than if an earthquake occurred near a land mass. Where there is unstable land, there leads to buildings toppling over and or the submerging of buildings at the time of an earthquake. The reason for this is because with solid land, the elasticity of the bedrock is less likely to bend out of control in comparison to sand/dirt. Sand and dirt does not stay in place when a wave travels through it. It shifts around and can even sink. Mexico City is currently standing over layers of clay and sand. This can potentially mean that the capital of Mexico is not in a very stable space if another earthquake is to happen again. No matter how many precautions they take, how many earthquake-proof buildings they erect, it could be all in vain.  The way that the material is arranged below Mexico City makes earthquakes even deadlier because one, “the looser sediments near the surface cause shock waves to slow down from about one and a half miles per second to about 150 feet per second as they enter the valley” (Watkins and White). As earthquake waves slow down, the amplitude of the wave increases to retain the property of a wave. With greater amplitude means more violent quakes. Additionally, “the denser, deeper material below the looser sediments causes waves to linger in the valley, making the amplified shaking last longer” (Watkins and White). Mexico City is in one of the worst spots to be in when an earthquake runs through the area.

So what does this mean for Mexico City? For starters, they can expect for more earthquakes to occur in the future because with out still-traditional methods of getting energy, we are still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. However, since most of it has been tapped out, extracting fossil fuels isn’t as easy as it was years ago. Now a days, people use fracking to extract these fuels from the Earth. However, fracking has a range of negative impacts on our Earth, one particularly because it plays a role in inducing more earthquakes. With the BP oil drilling incident in April 20, 2010, it is apparent that we are not moving away from fossil fuels. Turning to alternative energy sources may be a start to dealing with these earthquake issues. However, this still does not change the fact that Mexico City is on top of an ancient lake bed. Additionally, all of Mexico is an earthquake hot-spot. A possible solution would be to move away from grounded-housing and to build houses that are dynamic, able to move on the spot. There have been ideas of creating artificial islands that are capable of supporting life and moving around, but this is still far from implementable. Further research will need to be done.

Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/22/world/americas/mexico-city-earthquake-lake-bed-geology.html (Derek Watkins and Jeremy White)