Shaky At Best: The New Zealand Earthquake Forecasting Page With Links to Pseudoscience
At first glance, NZ Earthquake Community is a reputable Facebook page. It’s filled with content from GeoNet and advice about earthquake safety. It’s also only six clicks away from a crackpot’s RV in New Mexico.
Information on the page comes from two sources. If you follow the GeoNet rabbithole, you end up at the desks of GNS Science and Civil Defense. But if you follow the “windmap” rabbithole, you end up right next to 9/11 conspiracies and climate change denial. If you didn’t know any better, you might think that these two sources were equally valid.
GSA Today
Zealandia: Earth’s Hidden Continent
Cover Image
2 GNS Science, P.O. Box 30368, Lower Hutt 5040, New Zealand
3 SGEES, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
4 Service Géologique de Nouvelle Calédonie, B.P. 465, Nouméa 98845, New Caledonia
5 School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Abstract
A 4.9 Mkm
2 region of the southwest Pacific Ocean is made up of continental crust. The region has elevated bathymetry relative to surrounding oceanic crust, diverse and silica-rich rocks, and relatively thick and low-velocity crustal structure. Its isolation from Australia and large area support its definition as a continent Zealandia. Zealandia was formerly part of Gondwana. Today it is 94% submerged, mainly as a result of widespread Late Cretaceous crustal thinning preceding supercontinent breakup and consequent isostatic balance. The identification of Zealandia as a geological continent, rather than a collectio