The latest earthquakes explained: Is all this seismic activity normal?

If you feel like we’ve been on shaky ground in recent days, you’re right.

From a 5.8-magnitude earthquake that was felt by more than 44,000 people across Aotearoa late last week, to another 4.7-magnitude earthquake that hit the west coast of the South Island early Tuesday.

It follows hundreds of earthquakes detected around the Taup supervolcano since May, triggering volcanic disturbances that raised the Volcanic Alert Level (VAL) from 0 to 1, indicating “minor volcanic disturbances”.

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Part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, earthquakes are common throughout New Zealand. There are likely about 20,000 earthquakes in and around New Zealand each year, according to GeoNet.

However, Dr Finn-Elsley Kemp, a postdoctoral fellow in volcanodynamics in the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington, said most of these – those with intensities of less than 2 – would go unnoticed.

“The entire country is basically along the fault line.”

Is all this seismic activity normal?

The 5.8-magnitude earthquake, which struck around 9 p.m. Thursday and had its epicenter 30 kilometers northeast of the French Corridor at a depth of 51 kilometers, occurred along the subduction zone.

The Hikurangi subduction zone off the east coast of the North Island is New Zealand’s largest plate boundary fault, where the Pacific tectonic plate sinks beneath the Australian plate. It extends along most of the North Island.

GNSS Science

The Hikurangi subduction zone extends along the sea floor off the eastern coast of the North Island.

Dr Jonathan Hanson, a duty seismologist and member of the GNS volcano monitoring group, said Thursday’s quake was “relatively deep” which made it difficult to pinpoint the exact fault.

Although it was a “good shake up for the area,” it wasn’t uncommon with events of a similar size occurring every two years, he said.

“All of this seismic activity is related to the slip plates under the North Island,” Hanson said. “One of the interesting things about them is that they tend to be felt on a large scale.

By comparison, the West Coast earthquake that occurred just before 2 a.m. on Tuesday about 10 km northeast of Greymouth was 5 km deep in a “slightly different tectonic regime” albeit linked to the same plate boundaries.

“The place that happened near Greymouth is where the two plates slide side by side,” Hanson said.

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Dr. Jonathan Hanson, a seismologist on duty and a member of the GNS volcano monitoring group, says it’s unlikely the recent earthquakes will affect each other.

Are earthquakes related?

The earthquakes were all related in that they were part of the plate boundary on which New Zealand lies, Hanson said, however, the earthquakes were relatively far apart and unlikely to affect each other.

Elsie Kemp agreed, saying the vast majority are considered “totally irrelevant”.

With larger earthquakes like the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, there was some evidence that it could cause earthquakes elsewhere, and there was also some indication that it might affect volcanoes such as those already close to an eruption.

However, he said the exact link is not yet well understood.

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says Dr. Finn Elsley Kemp, Postdoctoral Fellow in Volcanodynamics, School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, VUW. The latter activity was “completely normal”.

Part of his research looked at this and whether there was any link between a slow-slip earthquake occurring off the East Coast with past volcanic disturbances.

What about volcanoes?

More than 700 earthquakes have been recorded under Lake Taupo since May this year, averaging 40 each week.

Last week, the Taup Volcanic Alert Level was raised from 0 to 1 for the first time.

A Volcanic Alert Level (VAL) of 1 means “minor volcanic disturbances” and causes constant earthquakes and ground deformation at Taub Volcano, under the lake and on the land around it.

It’s still unlikely there will be any kind of eruption, Elslie Kemp said, adding that Topo has experienced periods of upheaval like this 17 times in 150 years. The last eruption of Taupo was around the year 232 AD.

Hanson was also confident that these periods of turmoil were “not unusual”. The unrest was likely to last for a few weeks or even months.

Does that mean something big is brewing?

“Nothing in this activity is out of the ordinary,” Hanson said while it was “less likely” that all of these things would happen in the same week.

He said large earthquakes that can cause damage could occur in New Zealand at any time, so being prepared is key.

RNZ

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Elsie Kemp said the recent activity was “perfectly normal,” and it’s human nature to try to find turbidity in what were “random events.”

“There is absolutely no link between all of these events apparently occurring at the same time. These earthquakes and volcanic activity happen all the time especially in the Pacific Ocean.

Sometimes he said it might seem like it all happened in the same period, but it was just a “random distribution”.

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