New Zealand Earthquakes
Every year GNS Science locates over 15,000 earthquakes in New Zealand. About 100 – 150 of these quakes are large enough to be felt, - the others we only know about because they are recorded by seismographs.
Historic trends and records dating from the 1840s show that, on average, New Zealand can expect several magnitude 6 earthquakes every year, one magnitude 7 every 10 years, and a magnitude 8 every century.
The following animation shows the distribution of earthquakes recorded under New Zealand over a ten year period from 1998 to 2008. animation.mpeg (0 B)
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