Christchurch Canterbury and New Zealand Earthquakes.


3D Computer Simulation of Fault Line - Theory
Christchurch Earthquake Graphs
New Zealand Earthquake Graphs
Richter Scale Graph
Modified Mercalli Scale
Earthquake Formulas


Christchurch Earthquake Energy Release Graph

The graph below shows pre and post 4-September Christchurch 7.1 earthquake energy released per day

2012

2011

2010

The graph shows the total energy released, each day (blue), last 7 days ( red), last 14 days (green) in Joules right side scale.

The scale in the left is the effective magnitude that would result if the total energy:
- for that day was release in one earthquake each day
- for the last 7 day was release in one earthquake, one every 7 days
- for the last 14 day was release in one earthquake, one every14 days

FootNote:
The 7.1 magnitude quake released 2.8E+15 Joules, which is about the energy used by 100,000 houses in a year.  ( about the size of Christchurch)


Time Between Earthquakes In Canterbury

The graph below shows the average times between quakes in hours - of magnitudes
Less then 4 (Blue)

From 4 to 5 (Red)

Greater Than 5 (Yellow)

2012

2011

2010


An Interesting observation. Canterbury aftershocks sequence timing?

There appears to be a 56 day main period time between major quakes (Magnitude 5+). This includes the quakes on the:
4 Sep 2010 (7.1)
Boxing day 26 Dec (5.0)
22 Feb 2011 (6.3)
13 Jun 2011 (6.3)

This is probably the cycle time of this fault and Canterbury geography. The time it takes to settle then build up stress, to its main breaking point.
As time goes on with the ground settels down and the breaks start to fuse together, this cycle time should lengthen.
The above graph shows this for 2010 and 2011. The sequence time starts from the 4 Sep 2010 quake, and is shown centred on this date.
The observation is only intended to be taken as valid during the Canterbury earthquake activity.

This sequence is not the moon cycle which is 29.53 day, that is shown below and does not seem to show a definite pattern.

The above graph shows the earthquakes and the energy released each day during the 29.5 day lunar cycle over a year for Canterbury


Time Between Earthquakes around New Zealand

The graph below shows the duration between quakes around New Zealand during the year, excluding the Canterbury / Christchurch area due to the 7.1 earthquake on 4 September 2010.

The major grid spacing is 29.5 days which is the orbit time of the moon. The graph shows the correlation between the earthquake separations and moon orbit. The mid magnitude range 4.1 to 5.1 seems to show a slight increase in earthquake activity about every 29.5 days but is not consistent. 5+ magnitude seems to be about 2 per month and on average a small bias being about 9 days before new moon. The spread of peek quake magnitudes is only about one magnitude across the new moon cycle. (see graph below)
From this data there is no consistent way of predicting when an earthquake is going to happen and at what magnitude. This data is also New Zealand wide, and could be anywhere and at any depth.

The above graph shows the percentage of earthquakes and the energy released each day during the 29.5 day lunar cycle over a year for New Zealand