The Espíritu Santo Fault (Spanish: Falla de Espíritu Santo) is a dextral obliquestrike-slip fault in the department of Antioquia in northwestern Colombia. The fault has a total length of 124.4 kilometres (77.3 mi) and runs along an average northeast to southwest strike of 033.9 ± 5 in the Central Ranges of the Colombian Andes. Estimated activity took place around 500 years ago.
The fault forms well developed fault lines and valleys. The fault trace is marked by young morphologic features such as ground ruptures, saddles, shutter ridges, closed depressions, aligned and captured drainages and linear scarps on recent sediment. There is clear offset of 50-100 thousand year old terraces and Quaternary deposits around El Doce. In addition, the fault has displaced a Tertiary erosion surface. The last activity of the fault has been estimated at 500 years ago.[3]
The fault displays dextral (right-lateral) movement in ramps, displacing older deformational structures and forming an intense cataclasis. Rotated foliations are observed in a northeasterly direction, overprinting older foliations of a north-northwest trend.[4]
Page, W.D (1986), Seismic geology and seismicity of Northwestern Colombia, San Francisco, California, Woodward-Clyde Consultants Report for ISA and Integral Ltda., Medellín, pp. 1–200
Gómez Tapias, Jorge; Montes Ramírez, Nohora E.; Almanza Meléndez, María F.; Alcárcel Gutiérrez, Fernando A.; Madrid Montoya, César A.; Diederix, Hans (2015). Geological Map of Colombia. Servicio Geológico Colombiano. pp. 1–212. Retrieved 2019-10-29.