The unit collaborates and shares its data with all the regional seismic activity monitoring units in the Caribbean, including Cuba.
One of the most important aims of the unit is to improve upon and, where appropriate, install new instruments in order to build a network of strong motion accelerographs across the island. The measurements from these instruments are of primary concern to engineers and planners, since the quantity accelerations are displacements produced by larger earthquakes in designing buildings.
Building codes, zonation and risk maps are the expected end results of accelerometer data.
The continuous monitoring of seismicity across the island helps in identifying active faults, their extent and sense of motion and to determine patterns of seismic activity on the island.
The unit provides services to insurance adjusters and private citizens when information on local Earthquakes and their damage potential are requested.
It is to be noted that such detailed small scale zonation maps on the various hazards associated with earthquakes, as liquefaction potential maps, ground shaking intensity maps etc., are not available.
However, some of the basic research on which these maps are to be based is currently in progress at the Department of Geology, University of the West Indies.