Science Media Centre

Drilling into the Alpine Fault to measure the conditions of the fault and monitor what happens before a major earthquake, a team of New Zealand and international scientists found extremely hot water just a couple of hundred metres down.  The Westland Deep Fault Drilling Project — jointly led by Victoria University of Wellington, GNS Science and the University […]

Improving on their 2012 study in Science, GNS Science researchers have refined their understanding of past earthquakes on the South-Westland section of the Alpine Fault. The additional data, published last week in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, brings the estimated average interval between quakes from 329 ± 26 years, down to 291 ± 23 years. Though the […]

Over the coming days and weeks the full impact of Monday morning’s Kaikoura earthquake will become apparent. We asked an expert in the effect of natural disasters on tourism what the recovery of this tourist town might look like. Dr Caroline Orchiston, Deputy Director, Centre for Sustainability, University of Otago How do natural disasters like […]

The Alpine Fault running down the middle of the South Island has shifted more than previously thought. New research from Victoria University Wellington and GNS Science has revealed that the two sides of the fault have shifted 700km relative to each other in the last 25 million years – more than any other known onland […]

Scientist are planning to drill deep in the Alpine Fault to learn more about the fault and the earthquakes it produces with surprising regularity – at least in geological terms. The location is regarded by scientists as one of the best sites in the world to study the inner workings of a major plate boundary fault. […]

A study of sediment layers in the Southern Alps has offered new insights into the likelihood of the Alpine Fault generating a large earthquake in our lifetimes, making headlines here and overseas. The research, published today in the leading journal Science, presents a revised timeline of earthquakes occurring on the alpine faultline dating back 8,000 […]

New research out today reveals that the Alpine Fault – a strike-slip fault running almost the entire length of the South Island – is surprisingly “well-behaved” in its regularity. But good behaviour, in a scientific sense, may not bring much comfort to South Islanders. In earthquake terms, the 850km-long fault is remarkably consistent, rupturing on […]

Researchers monitoring seismic activity under the Southern Alps have reported ‘slow’ and ‘creeping’ earthquakes occurring deep under the mountain range. A team of researchers from Victoria University of Wellington have recorded a number of prolonged bursts of low-strength seismic energy, termed tectonic tremor, on the southern alpine fault-line. Their findings were published in the journal […]

The first of two planned boreholes into the Alpine Fault has been completed. The longest active fault in New Zealand, the research (being spearheaded by CRI GNS Science) aims to better understand the fault’s behaviour, and how it has fractured. An accompanying Checkpoint piece can be listened to here. An excerpt: (read in full here) […]

Paul Gorman writes in The Press about a west Coast tree stump which suggests that the Alpine Fault is moving faster than previously thought. Calculations based on when the tree died show that, rather than the Alpine Fault’s slip rate being 10 mm a year, it may in fact be moving some 13.6 mm a […]