Science Media Centre

Five years on from the biggest disaster in modern New Zealand, experts share their experiences and thoughts. At 12:51 pm on the 22nd of  February, 2011, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the city of Christchurch. One hundred and eighty five people lost their lives in the disaster, and the damage caused has been estimated in the […]

A new study suggests that geological stress caused by the September Darfield quake may have ‘loaded’ the fault that ruptured in the February Canterbury quake. New Zealand geologists agree this is possible but are treating the research with caution. A team of Italian Seismologists have analysed ground deformation data from a Japanese satellite to investigate […]

TVNZ: The University of Canterbury’s earthquake expert Mark Quigley presents to a packed-out audience in Christchurch on the Canterbury quake and becoming a science rockstar in the aftermath. Click here to view the video on the TVNZ website.

Marty Sharpe writes in the Dominion Post that, for at least some of the people who experienced the Christchurch earthquake, it could take as little as 3 months to return to a state of ‘unrealistic optimism’. ‘Unrealistic optimisim’ is defined as people being unreasonably optimistic about their chances of experiencing a natural disaster, and while […]

Paul Gorman writes in The Press that scientists believe that the earthquake which shook Canterbury last weekend could have had a beneficial effect: the timing of next big earthquake in the region could have been pushed back. A number of faults moved during the earthquake, although it is too early to say yet whether any […]

Earthquake experts Dr Ken Gledhill and Professor Martha Savage held a public lecture in Wellington today looking at the scientific data gathered during and following last Saturday’s 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Canterbury and what it tells us. Key talking points – The 7.1M earthquake was a strike-slip quake – the ground, according to Professor Savage […]

Tony Taylor, emeritus professor at Victoria Universitys School of Psychology specialises in human reactions to disasters and the phases of disasters. He provided the Science Media Centre with some comments on the short and potentially long-term psychological impacts of the Canterbury earthquake on the people who experienced it and its numerous aftershocks. Symptoms of psychological […]

Scientists say the 7.1 magnitude quake that rocked Canterbury on Saturday morning came from a previously unknown fault, but that if recent history is anything to go by, it could be one of a series of 7+ magnitude quakes some of which are still to come. Euan Smith Professor of Geophysics, Institute of Geophysics Victoria […]