Swarm of small earthquakes shake central North Island
MICHAEL DALY
October 29 2015
A Geonet map, with the green dot (centre) showing the general area where a swarm of early Thursday quakes were reported to be focussed.
A swarm of small earthquakes shook the central North Island in the early hours of Thursday.
Geonet recorded the first of the quakes at 3.14am. It had a magnitude 3.4 and was centred at a depth of 7km, 10km west of Turangi.
Ten people reported light shaking.
It was followed five minutes later by a magnitude 3.5 quake at the same location and depth.
Another eight quakes followed in the area around Turangi by 4am, ranging in magnitude between 2.0 and 3.2.
GNS Science duty seismologist John Ristau said it was not unusual to have a swarm of small or moderate quakes in the central North Island.
More analysis was needed on the early Thursday swarm before he could comment more specifically about it.
The early morning shaking comes after a magnitude 4.2 quake shook up Taranaki at 1.50pm on Wednesday.
That quake was centred 30km northwest of Opunake at a depth of 6km and Geonet received around 900 reports from people who felt it. In four of those reports, from New Plymouth, the intensity of the quake was reported as strong.
GNS Science volcanologist Geoff Kilgour said that quake did not affect Mt Taranaki.
There were a number of faults around Taranaki with a lot of quakes reported in the region occurring in the area off the coast of Opunake.
On October 12 at 9.05pm a magnitude 5.7 quake struck at a depth of 24km, 15km east of Pongaroa in Manawatu.
More than 5000 people reported feeling the quake which was thought to have happened on the interface of the subducting Pacific Plate and the overriding Australian Plate.
Pongaroa resident Linda Balfour said the quake went for a long time. "There was a fair lot of rattling going on. It was a good-old shake."
- Stuff
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