Earthquake researchers have discovered an Australian city at risk of a devastating earthquake

Geologists have made the disturbing discovery that Adelaide is at risk of a 7.2-magnitude earthquake.

They say the discovery means that Adelaide could be hit by an earthquake much stronger than the one that rocked Christchurch in 2011.

Scientists were exploring the Willunga fault line – 40 kilometers south of the city – looking for ancient earthquake scars when they discovered the new vulnerability in the region of 1.3 million people.

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“What we’ve been trying to determine is how often earthquakes have occurred on this fault in the past, how large they were, and what this might mean for the population of Adelaide today,” said Earthquake geologist Dr Dan Clark at Geoscience Australia.

“We calculate that the active length of this 55 km fault could host a magnitude 7.2 earthquake.

“An earthquake of this magnitude would have nearly 30 times the energy released by the earthquake that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2011.”

Australia has never recorded an earthquake of this magnitude.

The Christchurch earthquake has been declared the highest possible category of a regional disaster, with 6,659 serious injuries and 185 confirmed deaths, including one Australian.

Geoscience Australia seismologist Dr Dan Clark examines the trench on the Willunga fault. Credit: Geoscience Australia

“As with Christchurch, the Adelaide building inventory contains many heritage buildings that would be subject to strong ground shaking from an earthquake of this magnitude,” Clark said.

Adelaide was affected by a 5.4 magnitude earthquake in 1954, which resulted in damages to 3,000 buildings and more than 30,000 insurance claims for subsequent damages such as collapsed and cracked walls, smashed windows, and collapsed chimneys.

The new findings will advise future updates of Geoscience Australia’s National Earthquake Risk Assessment (NSHA), which is used by decision makers to consider insurance premiums, areas of risk for infrastructure investment, and communities in listed areas.

The NSHA also reports to the Australian Government’s Building Code Board.

Evidence digging

Two large trenches were dug by scientists from Geoscience Australia and researchers and students from the University of Melbourne and the Earthquake Research Center to expose the fault.

“In Australia, researchers have identified more than 350 faults – landscape features produced by large earthquakes – mostly via desktop studies using digital elevation data,” Clark said.

The team searched for “layer compensation” in the trench – layers of sediment that were displaced when the earthquake triggered a fault. These layers can be dated to estimate the time of the earthquake.

They also measured the amount of surface rock and soil displacement associated with the earthquake to determine its size.

“While the techniques are not new in plate margin settings such as California or New Zealand, few faults in Australia have been studied in this way,” Clark said.

earthquakes in australia

Earthquakes in Australia are caused by the slow build-up of pressure in the interior of the continent, Geoscience says, which results when the Australian tectonic plate moves about 7 cm northeast each year.

The pressure that builds up in these tectonic plates during this movement is released as an earthquake.

There have been 10 earthquakes larger than magnitude 3 within 150 km of Adelaide in the past 10 years.

The largest earthquake of the past decade was the 3.7 magnitude earthquake at Mount Parker on March 5, 2022.

The largest earthquake recorded in Australia was in 1988 in Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, with a magnitude of 6.6.

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