The Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault line is one of the two major fault lines that run through the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). The fault line is located to the north of the Caribbean Plate and to the south of the Gonave Microplate and the North American Plate. The Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault crosses through Port-au-Prince Haiti. The January 12, 2010, earthquake that devastated Haiti occurred along the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault.

In 2008, two geologists, Paul Mann from the University of Texas and Eric Calais from Purdue University forcasted that when the Enriquillo fault finally gave way to pressure, there would be a major earthquake that would measure up to 7.2 on the Richter scale. The geologists' paper, titled Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Strike-Slip Fault Zone: A Major Seismic Hazard Affecting Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica warned that a pressure had been building up and the region was in danger of a major earthquake.http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/HaitiEarthquake/haiti-earthquake-fault-line-visible-space-shuttle/story?id=9593349

The earthquake in Haiti happened on the Enriquillo fault. On the western end of the fault line sits Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. It crosses over Jamaica's capitol city of Kingston. On the eastern side is the island of Hispaniola, which is comprised of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. To the north of the Enriquillo fault is the Septenrional fault, which crosses over Cuba's southern tip and wraps over Hispaniola crossing through the Dominican Republic's Santo Domingo.http://abcnews.go.com/International/HaitiEarthquake/haiti-earthquake-geology-deadly-quake/story?id=9571101&page=2http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122531261 The Enriquillo fault is a crack between the North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate. Before the 2010 earthquake and subsequent aftershocks in Haiti, the last time it gave way to pressure was in 1907 in Jamaica.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15winchester.html