The Star: September 21, 2023
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Thursday <strong>September</strong> <strong>21</strong> <strong>2023</strong> <strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong><br />
that it’s partly due to the presence<br />
of the Hikurangi Plateau, which<br />
is a thick and quite transmissive<br />
crustal block,” he said.<br />
Jacobs said the event had been<br />
a good test of GNS Science’s<br />
newly released Shaking Layers<br />
tool, which provided shaking<br />
intensity maps minutes after an<br />
earthquake stronger than 3.5.<br />
It worked by combining<br />
ground motion recordings across<br />
GeoNet’s seismic networks with<br />
model predictions to estimate<br />
shaking at any given point in<br />
the country.<br />
Not only was today’s event the<br />
first, strong local quake to be<br />
measured by the tool – it was also<br />
equally the biggest quake of <strong>2023</strong>,<br />
alongside another 6.0 quake that<br />
hit near Paraparaumu that struck<br />
amid the Cyclone Gabrielle disaster<br />
on February 15.<br />
Other notable events this year<br />
included a 5.6 event, north of<br />
French Pass, on August 11, and<br />
a 5.9 event near Pōrangahau on<br />
April 26.<br />
Earlier this year, Canterbury<br />
was rocked by earthquakes measuring<br />
between 4.4 and 4.7. <strong>The</strong><br />
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz<br />
What does it mean?<br />
quakes, in March and April, were<br />
the largest in the region in <strong>2023</strong><br />
before today’s event.<br />
<strong>The</strong> shake also follows some<br />
notable spates this year recorded<br />
around Kawerau, Te Aroha and<br />
Pōrangahau – and there have<br />
been nine in total measuring<br />
above 5.0.<br />
But that didn’t mean there had<br />
been more activity than usual<br />
this year.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 10,957 quakes recorded<br />
over the first six months of <strong>2023</strong><br />
were relatively close to average,<br />
given our seismometers normally<br />
ROLLING:<br />
<strong>The</strong> epicentre<br />
and intensity<br />
contours from<br />
the earthquake<br />
yesterday<br />
morning.<br />
PHOTO: GEONET<br />
register around 20,000 in a year.<br />
Yesterday’s shake also came as<br />
a large team of scientists recently<br />
published data mapping nearly<br />
900 faults capable of generating<br />
moderate to large quakes.<br />
This wealth of new information<br />
helped inform the recentlyupdated<br />
National Seismic Hazard<br />
Model which, compared with<br />
previous estimates of seismic<br />
hazard, showed an increased risk<br />
of ground-shaking from future<br />
quakes in places such as Blenheim,<br />
Wellington, Napier and<br />
Gisborne.<br />
With a multi-million dollar,<br />
GNS-led programme called<br />
Rapid Characterisation of Earthquakes<br />
and Tsunami, or RCET,<br />
experts have been drawing on the<br />
latest science to fully understand<br />
a given quake’s complex, threedimensional<br />
nature.<br />
It has already helped deliver<br />
New Zealand one of the best<br />
earthquake response systems in<br />
the world – and enabled scientists<br />
to quickly gauge an event’s ability<br />
to cause widespread shaking,<br />
trigger tsunamis and landslides,<br />
as well as damage to infrastructure<br />
like roads and buildings.<br />
– NZ Herald<br />
NEWS 5<br />
Shaky Isles<br />
20,000: <strong>The</strong> number<br />
of earthquakes<br />
recorded each year in<br />
New Zealand by GNS<br />
Science. About 100 to<br />
150 of these quakes<br />
are large enough<br />
to be felt; scientists<br />
only know about the<br />
others because they<br />
were recorded by<br />
seismographs.<br />
1000km: Faults can be<br />
as short as a few metres,<br />
and as long as 1000km.<br />
<strong>The</strong> fault rupture from<br />
an earthquake isn’t<br />
always a straight or<br />
continuous line.<br />
125,000 years: If a<br />
fault shows evidence of<br />
having moved at least<br />
once in the past 125,000<br />
years, geologists regard<br />
the fault as a potential<br />
source of earthquakes.<br />
If it has moved at<br />
least once in the past<br />
5000 years, then it is<br />
considered a potential<br />
source of damaging<br />
earthquakes to any<br />
settlement within a<br />
radius of 50km.<br />
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