Thursday, November 2, 2017
OPOTIKI has been rattling the past few days with GNS Science recording a flurry of shallow earthquakes in the vicinity of White Island.
The earthquakes started about 6pm on Sunday with the largest in the series, a 4.1 magnitude quake, recorded at 11.24pm. With a depth of nine kilometres, it was felt across Opotiki.
It seems to have set off a chain reaction of earthquakes in the area, with aftershocks continuing.
Seismologist Brad Scott at GNS Science Wairakei said as White Island was the nearest geographic location, their automated location software reported them as being nearby.
“White Island is a large volcano with a significant footprint under the sea, being about 6 x 10 kilometres at 300-metre depth.
“However, these earthquakes are beyond the footprint of the volcano, hence we consider them to be caused by regional faulting, rather than related to the volcano.”
The swarm of quakes continued yesterday, ranging from magnitude 2 to a moderate 4.8, recorded as originating 15km north-east of White Island at depth of 7 kilometres.