New Zealand's M6.5 Earthquake related to the ongoing Silent M7 Quake Under Wellington? - July 22, 2013

A SWARM of earthquakes that rocked New Zealand, damaging buildings and shattering nerves in the capital of Wellington may carry on for weeks.

Almost 120 aftershocks have been recorded since the magnitude 6.5 quake which struck in the Cook Strait at 5.09pm (3.09pm AEST) Sunday, including a spate of tremors reaching between 4.5 and 4.9 in magnitude struck the middle of the country about 3.15am (1.15am AEST) Monday, The New Zealand Herald reports.

New Zealand's capital Wellington was rattled by a strong magnitude 6.5 earthquake on Sunday that broke water mains, smashed windows and downed power lines. A camera inside the newsroom of broadcaster TVNZ captured the moment the quake struck, showing workers ducking for cover under their desks as the room sways.

 

Silent M7 Quake under Wellington!

Many people are not aware, but to the west of Wellington, the equivalent of a magnitude 7 earthquake is happening right now, 40 km below ground. This would be Wellington’s largest earthquake in 150 years, yet nothing is felt at the surface. Even our sensitive earthquake recording instruments hardly notice a thing. This is because, unlike a normal earthquake, these plate movements happen very slowly in a process known as “slow-slip events”. This Kapiti slow-slip event is affecting an area spanning over 100 km from Levin to the Marlborough Sounds. Conventional earthquakes happen when one side of a fault moves past the other suddenly. A similar process occurs with slow slip, except it takes much longer for the fault to move and release energy, this is why slow-slip events are often called silent earthquakes.


GeoNet’s continuously-running GPS instruments in Wellington and Kapiti show that the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates are slipping past each other more rapidly than usual. This has been going on since January of this year, and will most likely continue for several months. These movements represent the equivalent of a magnitude 7 earthquake on the plate boundary, at 40 km depth. read more HERE
news.co.au , RT , geonet.org