A burst of earthquake activity occurred near Wellington this evening.
Thursday 8th October 2020
A burst of earthquake activity occurred near Wellington this evening.
The activity appears to have started with a magnitude 3.2 event at 9:53 p.m. centred in Tasman Bay, 20 km east of Six Foot Rock at a depth of 126 km according to the Wellington Quake Live website. Wellington Quake Live uses data from Geonet’s databases, but information on this event was not listed on Geonet’s website at the time of writing.
A magnitude 3.6 earthquake centred in Wellington Harbour, 5km east of Wellington, struck at 10:15 p.m. Geonet reports this event was 26 km deep and described it as “light.” More than 11,000 felt reports were filed with Geonet for this event. Wellington Quake Live reports this event as centred in the water 370 metres north-north-west of Ward Island (Makaro) in Wellington Harbour.
At 10:19 a magnitude 2.8 km earthquake struck onshore 5 km north of Wellington at a depth of 28 km, according to Geonet. Describing this earthquake as “weak” Geonet’s website reported 5132 felt reports. Wellington Quake Live reports this earthquake as centred 2 km west-south-west of the suburb of Churton Park.
At 10:21 p.m. a magnitude 2.2 earthquake struck 20 km south-west of Wellington at a depth of 13 km, according to Geonet. Describing this event as “unnoticeable” Geonet’s website reports 2355 felt reports from the public. Wellington Quake Live reports that this earthquake was centred in Cook Strait, 10 km south-south-west of Thoms Rock.
At 10:24 a magnitude 2.4 earthquake struck 5 km east of Wellington at a depth of 28 km. This earthquake was beneath Wellington Harbour, north of Miramar Peninsular, and described as “unnoticeable” by Geonet with only 1207 felt reports being recorded by their website. Wellington Quake Live reports this quake as centred in the harbour 2 km west-north-west of Ward Island (Makaro).
At 10:34 a magnitude 1.9 earthquake appeared to have completed the short burst of activity. This quake was centred 5 km west of Lower Hutt at a depth of 25 km according to Geonet. Reporting this quake as “unnoticeable”, the Geonet website recorded 321 felt reports from the public. No data on this event is available from the Wellington Quake Live website.
At the time of writing, a magnitude 2.1 earthquake in Wellington Harbour north of Miramar Peninsular appears to have completed the sequence of earthquakes. This earthquake, which struck at 10:42 p.m. was 28 km deep, reported as “unnoticeable” by Geonet, which reported 201 felt reports from the public. Wellington Quake Live reports this event as centred in Wellington Harbour, 3 km west-north-west of Ward Island (Makaro).
[Compiled from data supplied by the Geonet and Wellington Quake Live websites.]