New Zealand sees exotic earthquake sequence Posted on
Shinji Toda, Ph.D., IRIDeS, Tohoku University
Citation: Gonzalez-Huizar, H., Toda, S., 2021, New Zealand sees exotic earthquake sequence, Temblor, http://doi.org/10.32858/temblor.160
On March 4, 2021, a series of three large earthquakes struck within six hours of one another in the South Pacific. The earthquakes struck along 560 miles (900 kilometers) of the Kermadec trench, where the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates converge. The first shock a magnitude-7.3 struck at 2:27 am local time in the southern part of the trench, just off the northeastern coast of New Zealand’s North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui). The resulting pattern of seismic waves suggests that it was a complex rupture along multiple adjacent faults.