The Boconó Fault is a right-lateral strike-slip fault running about 500 kilometres along the crest of the Venezuelan Andes, cutting through the Mérida range from the Táchira depression near the Colombian border toward the Caribbean coast. It is the principal onshore element of the boundary between the South American and Caribbean plates in western Venezuela.
As the Caribbean Plate moves eastward relative to South America, the Boconó absorbs a large share of that motion, slipping on the order of a centimetre per year and helping uplift the high Andean peaks around Mérida. Offset streams, moraines and ridges along its trace record its steady sideways slip.
The fault has generated damaging historical earthquakes, including the 1812 quake that severely damaged Mérida and other Andean towns during Venezuela's war of independence, and events in 1894 and 1932. Its passage through populated Andean valleys keeps it among the most important seismic sources in the country.