New Zealand Quake Tears A New Faultline in Earth

New Zealand's powerful earthquake that smashed buildings, cracked roads and twisted railway lines around Christchurch ripped a new 11ft wide fault line in the earth's surface, a geologist said yesterday.

The whole dairy farm is like the sea now, with real (soil) waves right across the dairy farm. We don't have physical holes (but) where the fault goes through it's been raised a metre or metre and a half," he said.

www.istockanalyst.com...



This is known as liquefication-a very deep very bad quake

Although there were only 2 serious injuries reported, I found that a new faultline forming was pretty significant.



There were 50 new fault lines discovered this year in California, including at least one very dangerous one.
I have been following quake activity for about 3 yrs now on a daily basis, and until I heard about the new ones in California, I didn't know that they were occurring like this, and now in New Zealand too, it is concerning to me.

laist.com...

I want to know, if any of you have a background in geology, what is the significance of new fault lines forming? I am starting to believe a little in the expanding earth theory!

A new fault line, at up to 11 feet wide, is quite interesting. I too am curious as to the significance of a new fault line and also how frequently they occur. I remember reading in another thread, probably the earthquake thread, that there wasn't a known fault line where this occurred, but a new fault line seems more significant than an unknown one.

I'm a bit confused about the liquefaction you mentioned. My understanding of it has nothing to do the land being raised, ripples in the soil or about a new fault, depending how I interpret your post. I though it had to more with the Earth becoming "liquid" and "swallowing" buildings but I'm not a geologist. Also the quake wasn't very deep at only approximately 3 miles. Am I misreading that part?

Thankfully it doesn't appear anyone died, especially with over 500 buildings being destroyed and it happening near such a populated area. I'll be paying attention to this for the more knowledgeable posters to comment on this. Nice find space cadet!

reply to post by Three_moons


Actually the liqufication doesn't have anything to do with the new faultline, I just thought it was interesting that it occurred during this quake. Typically it happens with soils that are only about 10000 yrs old, moved around during wind, rain, flood, ect.

I wonder if the area of liquification fits this bill, but I will try to stay on track with the subject of the faultline.

I didn't realise this quake created a new fault line. I had heard that it was on a already existing fault, that had not been discovered due to the massive silt deposits in the Canterbury region.

Experts always expcted there to be fault lines here, but they had never had the funding to find out exactly where they were.

Hey, I am 10km from the epicentre of the quake. Was out today surveying the uplifts and cracks in the local area.

The liquefaction was limited to the coastal areas which includes the City of Christchurch (parts of) and Kaiapoi - a town north of Christchurch. Both areas have areas built on sand.

Here on the Plains where the fault line is mostly situated we aren't subject to liquefaction.

Most homes in Christchurch have insurance against liquefaction as standard.

Check this out:

www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by grantbeed
I didn't realise this quake created a new fault line. I had heard that it was on a already existing fault, that had not been discovered due to the massive silt deposits in the Canterbury region.

Experts always expcted there to be fault lines here, but they had never had the funding to find out exactly where they were.

They really don't seem to know. Some say new fault line and others say a fault line that hasn't been active in 16,000 years. They need more time to assess the area. But you're right in that the event was NOT connected to the usual suspect - the Alpine Fault - running the length of the South Island.

[edit on 6-9-2010 by MoorfNZ]

One of the local uplift sites we went to today - this was a dead flat, dead straight road on Highfield Road - it's now called Highfield Hump


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/62e50ce3dd2a.jpg[/atsimg]



Here you can see the road, hedge and fence line displaced sideways to the left by a couple of metres....


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/abff3c628c3a.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 6-9-2010 by MoorfNZ]

reply to post by MoorfNZ


How freaking weird is that? It actually moved over to the side????? I did not know that was even possible during a quake!

[edit on 6-9-2010 by space cadet]

Perhaps if it had been left where it was then there wouldn't be any problems.

Glad to hear fatalities are at a minimum. That whole neck of the woods has moved considerably in the last 100,000 years - I'm surprised there aren't more incidences like this.

-m0r

Here's one from another angle that shows the fenceline movement more clearly - you can also see the hedge displacement.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/7c3d69b18ee5.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by space cadet

This is known as liquefication-a very deep very bad quake

I read the quake was at 16km deep, which is very shallow, not deep..

Also on ABC radio they had some expert saying they were worried it might effect the fault line on the west coast, this one was on the east coast..

Originally posted by space cadet
I want to know, if any of you have a background in geology, what is the significance of new fault lines forming? I am starting to believe a little in the expanding earth theory!

I am by no means a geology expert, although I have been fascinated by volcanoes/earthquakes/tsunamis since I was a kid. I can't tell you the significance of a new fault forming, but this may not have been a "new" fault line in the first place. An informative link was posted by aorAki on the main chch quake thread. Here are some excerpts from the site.

Preliminary investigations suggest that the fault was not previously recognized as a major earthquake source because it resides under the Canterbury Plains and had no prior visible geomorphic expression. However, U Canterbury scientist Jarg Pettinga predicted the presence of such faults in a paper published 12 years ago.

Much is being made in the media of this as being a "new fault". This is probably not a "new fault" in the sense that the earthquake caused a previously unruptured part of the Earth's crust to rupture. My suspicion is that this fault has had earthquakes in the past, but has a sufficiently long recurrence interval (time between earthquakes) such that any prior evidence of past earthquakes was not visible on the surface prior to this earthquake.

So it may not be new after all, just not all that active, at least in terms of human timeframes. I'd be interested in finding out more about the predictions of Jarg Pettinga when I've got the time to look over his studies.

Originally posted by space cadet
Actually the liqufication doesn't have anything to do with the new faultline, I just thought it was interesting that it occurred during this quake. Typically it happens with soils that are only about 10000 yrs old, moved around during wind, rain, flood, ect.

Well it turns out some of the sedimentation may not even be that old. As MoorfNZ pointed out, most of the liquefication occured on sand or silt sediment based land. The article in the link above discusses some of the geological properties of the Canterbury Plains.

Much of the Canterbury Plains consist of sediments with soil profiles that suggest the surfaces are ~16,000 years old (person. commun. P. Almond, Lincoln Uni) - if these show no prior evidence of faulting then a reasonable conclusion, as proposed by GNS scientists, is that there had not been an earthquake on this fault in the last 16,000 years prior to this event. However, given the active nature of Canterbury's major rivers, it is possible that the oldest surface cut by the fault may be less than 16,000 years old, and may be as young as 6.000 yrs old. In that case, it is possible that the recurrence interval on the fault is much shorter than 16,000 yrs.

I am still amazed that no lives were lost in this event. But it has certainly impacted on many peoples lives, both physically and emotionally. I feel a little ashamed for being marvelled and somewhat excited by this quake, as it is clear people are going through hell while I'm comfortable at home at the Northern end of the country.

Amazing photos MoorfNZ, and I hope all goes well for you and your family. I'm sure all Kiwi's, here and abroad, have their thoughts with you guys, and I hope there is some way we can help out.

reply to post by space cadet


'"...there will be earthquakes in diverse places...these things are bound to happen..."'

isnt NZ on the bottom area of the same geologic plate as Indonesia which is at the top-&-eastern portion of the same tectonic plate?

and isn't new land (Atlantis) supposed to appear ...according to folklore and legend/predictions

an 11ft shift or slip-fault isn't that uncommon especially at the numberous faults in California...
and those pics of the formerly straight road & hedge row just show that the slippage was perpendicular to the road instead of paralell to it.

interesting & attention getting,

Flag and Star

I just read this as well when I opened up the Yahoo News feature.

This is truly significant!!!! Plus I hadn't heard about the 50 new ones in Californina

Interesting times, my friends

reply to post by Curious and Concerned


I have also been fascinated by quakes for most of my life and have watched others across the world with awe and excitement - even wishing I could have felt them myself.

Not so now.

Now the full reality of what has happened has hit my hubby and I are shell shocked, stressed and extremely anxious. Living on adrenaline for what is now almost 4 days is horrid.

However, my knowledge of quakes has helped me immensely and helped me help others understand a little of what's going on.

We are now formulating an evacuation plan if another 7.0 hits soon..

The North Island has just had a 5.2 www.geonet.org.nz...



AORAKI - how are you holding up mate???

reply to post by St Udio


The 'new land appearing' thing keeps coming up in my mind as well. Not that I am relating to this event in particular, but I feel this 'new land' will appear in our lifetime. Actually it could be the land forming due to the underwater volcano in the Tongas.

reply to post by St Udio


double post, sorry

[edit on 6-9-2010 by space cadet]

www.crashbang.co.nz...

links to a whole mess of pictures curtosy of fark figured id pipe in with these as i know nothing about earthquakes other then its why i left california but therese some pretty trippy pictures here!

reply to post by KilrathiLG


Unbelievable that no one was killed during this earthquake! Also I was under the impression that earthquakes don't actually open the ground up and things fall in! When a new fault is ripped, i guess they do!