Earthquakes

Analysis and Comment (17)

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Monitoring radon could reveal whether coal seam gas extraction is messing with the soil’s structure. Jeremy Buckingham

Earthquakes and coal seam gas

By Douglas Tait; Damien Maher, and Isaac Santos

Two recent peer reviewed studies on opposite sides of the globe have shed light on how monitoring of earthquakes and determining greenhouse gas emissions from the coal seam gas (CSG) industry may be connected…
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The public should be made aware of all possible scenarios within an earthquake sequence. Ettore Ferrari/EPA

L’Aquila charges leave earthquake scientists on shaky ground

By Mark Quigley, University of Canterbury

You’ll know by now that six scientists and a government official have been found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison for how they assessed and communicated risk prior to the L’Aquila…
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Coal’s toll? A Newcastle church cupola damaged in the 1989 earthquake serves as a memorial for the 13 people killed. Flickr/OZinOH

Earthquakes and mining – how humans create seismic activity

By Christian Klose, Northwest Research Associates

This week’s 5.3 magnitude earthquake that struck near Moe in Victoria’s brown-coal mining region of the La Trobe Valley brings to mind the 5.6 magnitude quake of 1989 in another coal-mining heartland…
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The 1989 Newcastle earthquake is the most devastating in Australia’s history … and it wasn’t much stronger than last night’s. University of Newcastle

The Victorian earthquake didn’t do much damage … but the next one might

By Tim Rawling, University of Melbourne

Just before 9pm last night (AEST) a magnitude-5.4 earthquake (initially measured as magnitude-5.3) rocked Victoria. The quake did minimal damage to property and no injuries have been reported, but it reminded…
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A prison official examines damage to the prison wall that collapsed after this week’s earthquake in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Hotli Simanjuntak/EPA

The Sumatran earthquake didn’t cause a tsunami because …

By Martha Savage, Victoria University of Wellington

The earthquake that struck roughly 400km off the coast of Sumatra on Wednesday reminded us all that our planet hasn’t gone to sleep. Big earthquakes can happen at any time and often have severe consequences…
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Aceh’s provincial elections will test democratic progress. AAP/Hotli Simanjutak

Votes not violence: rebuilding post-disaster Aceh

By Damien Kingsbury, Deakin University

The massive but largely benign earthquake off the coast of Sumatra on Wednesday left millions in Aceh reliving the nightmare that engulfed them on Boxing Day 2004. On that day, a similarly large earthquake…
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The more we understand about earthquakes, the more we can do to reduce their impact. EPA/Kimimasa Mayama

Underground sounds: why we should listen to earthquakes

By Zhigang Peng, Georgia Institute of Technology

The magnitude 9.0 Tōhoku-Oki earthquake of March 11 last year was the largest earthquake in Japan’s modern history. In fact, it was the fourth-largest earthquake anywhere in the world since 1900. The…
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We know how much damage tsunamis can cause, we need to know more about when and where they come from. AAP

We should have been prepared for the Fukushima tsunami

By James Goff

A year ago yesterday the Tōhoku-Oki earthquake and resultant tsunami hit the Japanese coastline, triggering the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster. A year on, many questions are being asked about how…
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How does Queensland tourism recover after a cyclone and floods earlier this year? AFP Photo/Paul Crcok

Danger in paradise: resurrecting tourism after natural disasters

By David Beirman, University of Technology, Sydney

This year’s natural disasters have been an omnipresent and unwelcome theme impacting on tourism to Japan, New Zealand, Queensland and Thailand. Long after the initial horror of a natural disaster, the…
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The last 10 years have seen three of the seven biggest earthquakes ever recorded. Tubbi/Wikimedia Commons

Are we living through an earthquake cluster?

By Kevin Furlong, Pennsylvania State University

Since the 2004 Sumatra earthquake, there have been several major events, and a large number of magnitude-8 earthquakes – a cluster, it could be said, of large earthquakes. The last time we saw this was…
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Is earthquake prediction even possible? Soe Than WIN/AFP

Revealing cracks in seismology

By Martha Savage, Victoria University of Wellington

Why have so many lives been lost in Japan and New Zealand recently? And why have so many survivors – the so-called “lucky ones” – had their livelihoods and homes destroyed? As a seismologist, I ask myself…
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Is the nuclear industry facing unfair criticism? AFP Photo/Don Emmert

Nuclear will survive, because it has to

By George Dracoulis

Japan relies on nuclear power for about 30% of its electricity. It has few natural resources and imports large quantities of coal, gas and oil at an ever increasing cost. Some Japanese people are not in…
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Should we be able to better “manage” extreme events? Kimimasa Mayama/EPA

Learning from the Japan tsunami

By James Goff

What lessons can we learn from the March 11 Japan earthquake and tsunami? Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing. We can, of course, question the wisdom of placing nuclear power plants in coastal locations…

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