The event had a hypocenter depth of 113.9 km, beneath the Caichinque volcanic complex.

Off the coast of Chile, the Nazca Plate subducts beneath the South American Plate along the Peru–Chile or Atacama Megathrust, producing large earthquakes including the 1960 Chilean earthquake which had a magnitude of 9.5–9.6 on the moment magnitude scale.

These earthquakes do not occur on the subduction interface; rather they happen as a result of faulting within the downgoing Nazca Plate.

[5] This was the result of extensional stress acting on the Nazca Plate at an intermediate depth.

Based on its large seismic magnitude, the rupture area is estimated to be 6,000 km2, breaking through the thickness of the Nazca Plate along a vertically-dipping normal fault.