Quake focus for meeting
UNDERSTANDING the hazards posed by earthquakes during ‘‘peace time’’ will be a major focus of an international earthquake science conference in Otago this week.
University of Otago earthquake science chairman Mark Stirling said one of his goals was to make Otago residents aware there were potentially hazardous earthquake sources in the region — and the hazard was not just the Alpine Fault.
‘‘If you go to the pub, say, and talk to someone, they think that the only hazardous earthquake that’s going to affect Dunedin, say, is going to be an Alpine Fault earthquake. And that’s not the case.
‘‘The Akatore Fault and the Titri Fault are very close to the city, and if they had their major earthquakes they would shake the city very, very badly compared with what an Alpine Fault [earthquake] would do.’’
Prof Stirling is the lead convener of the 2018 TaiwanJapanNew Zealand Seismic Hazards Assessment Meeting, in Oamaru this week, where 70 top earthquake scientists from the three Pacific Ring of Fire nations will focus on ‘‘lowseismicity areas’’, promoting becoming more earthquake resilient and earthquake aware.
‘‘You’re in these areas where hardly anything happens for decades and even centuries and then you can get out of the blue without warning a major devastating earthquake, or earthquake sequence,’’ Prof Stirling said.
‘‘Dunedin is a similar situation to Christchurch. That we have low rates of seismicity, nothing in the historical period since the city was developed by the Scots.
‘‘But we know that there are fault lines in the area that have had big earthquakes in the geologic past.
‘‘The big uncertainty we have is how we can better anticipate when and where those earthquakes are going to happen. And once they happen, the ground motions that they produce.’’
The conference opened with a tour at Kaikoura, on Monday, where an unprecedented 23 fault lines contributed to Canterbury’s recent major earthquake.
Two days of workshops will be followed by three days of field trips in Central Otago.