High resolution double-difference relocations of earthquakes in and offshore Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands during the deployment of ocean bottom seismometers from mid-2015 to mid-2016

Puerto Rico is a Caribbean Island with a population of about 3.2 million people who are exposed to natural hazards including earthquakes and submarine landslides that can generate tsunamis. Previous work has shown seismicity offshore Puerto Rico especially between the coastline and the Puerto Rico Trench north of the island. The Puerto Rico Seismic Network maintains the local seismic network to record earthquakes, but these earthquake locations rely on seismic instruments that are all located on land. As part of the assessment of these natural hazards to Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, six ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) were deployed from mid-2015 to mid-2016 to help understand offshore seismic hazards especially those north of the islands near the Puerto Rico Trench. This data release presents earthquake information recorded during the deployment and attempts to relocate these events by merging the earthquake phase arrival data from the Puerto Rico Seismic Network and the OBS deployment.