Six months of seismic activity in under a minute
I created a video to animate six months of 2010 New Zealand seismic activity data picked up by the GeoNet sensors. The animation begins in April and ends a few days after the 7.1 quake that hit Christchurch on September 4. Keep in mind three things when you view the video.
- Blue circles represent seismic activity recordings.
- Each event leaves behind a small, pale red dot to show the overall pattern.
- Most events are either small, deep or both.
Note how sparse the pattern of spots across Canterbury is until early September.
[vimeo width=”690″ height=”707″]http://vimeo.com/14785341[/vimeo]
The data comes from the excellent folks at the New Zealand Geonet project. You can download the data as a spreadsheet from magma.geonet.org.nz/resources/quakesearch/.
I created the individual animation frames using Python and matplotlib. I stitched the images together with FFmpeg. I acknowledge the New Zealand GeoNet project and its sponsors EQC, GNS Science and LINZ for providing the data.
7 Responses to “Six months of seismic activity in under a minute”
Most excellent. It is interesting how many earthquakes occur all the time in the Wairarapa, Bay of Plenty and Fiordland. If each earthquake is considered to be the earth moving a little bit, then the relative paucity of quakes between all the shifting in Fiordland and in the lower North Island, could imply that pressure is building on the Alpine fault.
Chris,
That’s a brilliant job. Thank you.
It is possible to do the same thing of just the Christchurch area, and have you noticed any trend in the after-shocks?
I know I’m hoping for the impossible, but trying to get some idea of where after-shocks might be next.
Steve (in Christchurch, hence vested interest)
@Steve. I am not a geologist and I do not have much of a background in studying earthquakes. You could have a look at some of the posts that Jesse Dykstra has been writing. See this one for example: https://sciblogs.co.nz/shaken-not-stirred/2010/09/08/whats-with-those-aftershocks/
Great work Chris. Here’s a map from UC http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz
This is really cool. One thing I couldn’t help but notice is that the earth quakes seem to move like a river up the country suggesting very much that they are related and seem to cause this cascading effect, maybe its my imagination.
[…] Chris McDowall has turned out some excellent visualisations this year – notably the time lapse animation of New Zealand earthquakes leading up to and following the 7.1 magnitude quake in Canterbury. A […]
Truly the Shaky Isles- my Dad drove an ambulance during the 1931 Napier earthquake. Having much later experienced, in the same city, minor jolts- they are terrifying experiences.
Does anyone know why Wellington- long expected to get the really BIG Quake, has not so far- and Christchurch did?
Rosamund