Seismic Science - The Textbook Quake

The 7.1 earthquake which struck New Zealand’s 2nd largest city on September 4th is being called a textbook tremor. It will be the most studied earthquake in the Pacific nation.

Because of the quality and quantity of information available it will become one of the most analysed and understood fault line fractures anywhere.

A fault that without warning - ruptured lives and landscape.

This was a major earthquake that woke a metropolitan city and shook buildings to the ground. 100 thousand homes were damaged but amazingly no lives were lost. "..it will become one of the most analysed and understood fault line fractures anywhere" It’s shaping up to be one of the most expensive earthquakes for insurers, but it’s proving a goldmine for scientists.

Within hours from around the world they were booking flights to the epicentre, 40 km west of Christchurch, to see the damage and data for themselves. Special monitoring equipment had already been installed along the South Island’s Southern Alps where everyone was expecting the “big one” to one day hit. But it wasn’t the Alpine fault that moved; it was a fault they never knew existed.

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