The largest to strike the region in more than 100 years.
“Tonight on the late news they reported a M 6.3 earthquake,” says reader Carla Burgers. “However Geonet rates it a m 6.5 or even a M7. It was felt here in Christchurch.”
“I thought it was a M4 somewhere “in the neighbourhood” until I listened to the news.”
Thanks to Carla Burgers and Laurel for this info
According to the USGS Real-time earthquake map, it was a 6.2
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/However, the New Zealand Herald called it a magnitude 7.0.
The quake struck at 10.36pm, 60km south-west of Opunake in Taranaki, at a depth of 230km.
Seismologist Lara Bland said the quake was the largest to strike the South Taranaki Bight in about 119 years. In 1893 a quake struck measuring about magnitude 7.2.
See entire article:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10817239
6 Responses to Large earthquake near Wellington, NZ
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7.0 on our scale. Lasted for 72 seconds and was 230kms deep. A good rattle and roll here. If it was any shallower, say 100km deep, there would have been greater damage.
Interesting..there seem to be a mix of estimates of scale 6.2 to 7, Dont know what GNS (NZ) is doing cant get their mags accurate! It was very deep.
the geonet crowd seem complacent about it .
any more may cause more interest, seems they dont expect any
GeoNet (New Zealand) have it at 7.148 ML which equates to ~6.6 Mw
As stated USGS have 6.2 Mw, as does EMSC. GFZ Potsdam have 6.3 Mw and so does the GeoAzur SCARDEC analysis.
I keep a <a href="http://quakewatch.wordpress.com/provider-magnitude-comparison-2012/"<running record of the values of Mag 6 and greater here
Currently goes back to May but I am working on it.
This was reported as a 7.0. Notice how they always DOWNgrade quakes, never UPgrade them?
Biggest quake in 100 years.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/247504-New-Zealand-s-Biggest-Quake-in-100-years
This was reported as a 7.0. Notice how they always DOWNgrade quakes, never UPgrade them?
They do upgrade them – frequently. Take a look at my blog (link in name). All the ones with ↑ are upgrades.
You are falling into the ‘scales trap’
As I said below this is reported as 7.148 ML that is Richter Magnitude scale which equates to 6.6 Moment of Magnitude scale (Mw). Richter scale is unreliable over about 6.5. The two reported values are a little different but not as far apart as you might think.