More than a dozen earthquakes, most of them small, have followed this morning’s earthquake under Lake Taupo. The latest outburst is a continuation of an earthquake swarm under the volcanic lake, which has produced as many as 50 quakes in the last two months.
GeoNet has published data for the two largest events in this morning’s outburst in the Taupo earthquake swarm. The largest quake so far was the magnitude 4.2 earthquake which struck at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday the 17th of September 2008. The quake was very shallow at 1 km, and located underneath the lake 20 km south-west of Taupo (20 km north-east of Turangi).
Smaller quakes followed, and a magnitude 3.4 aftershock at a depth of 2 km was recorded at 9:27 a.m.
Most of the earthquakes in the swarm appear to be magnitude 2 or less, like the magnitude 2.8 quake that was reported on September 11th.
In August, GeoNet reported five events with magnitudes between 2.4 and 3.6 under the lake. The swarm was quieter during July, with GeoNet publishing information on only one event. In June, three events with magnitudes between 2.7 and 3.3 were reported under the lake and another two events of magnitude 2 near Turangi on the southern shore of the lake.
[Compiled from data provided by the GeoNet project and its sponsors EQC, GNS Science and FRST.]