New Zealand Quake 6.3

Type: Earthquake
20 minutes ago
Magnitude: 6.3
DateTime: Friday December 7 2012, 18:19:08 UTC
Region: North Island of New Zealand
Depth: 167.2 km
Source: USGS Feed

First a big Earthquake in Japan earlier today (7.3) and now New Zealand. Thankfully it was quite a deep one at 167km.

There is some strange stuff going on, I got that report too, and we have had more red Quakes (6 plus) today on earth than in the 2 years I have been researching them.
earthquake.usgs.gov...

Maybe Cali's next. I could use a good massage!

reply to post by Alternative4u


I know, been loads of big ones today, mostly around Japan. By looking at the map, it appears to be that New Zealand is kinda on the same fault line.

I hope it all calms down...

It was a bit of a shaker here in NZ - we got shook out of bed ok but all is well where we are North Wairapa.

Sorry for the utter ignorance, but can someone explain the difference in a shallow quake versus a deeper quake? I know what shallow and deep mean, but why would one be preferably over the other? Are they caused by different things? Have different impacts?

Thanks in advance...

I'm no quake expert but the more shallow it is the more the impact on the surface.

If it's a shallow quake, that means it's closer to land creating more tremors and destruction.

Deeper ones, by the time their tremors reach land, they become slightly less dangerous due to the longer distance between the epicentre and land...

Up in Alaska we have quakes all the time but of very small magnitudes but Tuesday we had a 5.8 magnitude about 28 miles due West of Anchorage. So chalk another fairly decent sized quake up, making it three pretty big ones.

China had a 5.3 with the depth of 16km about 5 hours ago.

It's all shaking today!

This just in ...


Type: Earthquake
14 minutes ago
Magnitude: 5.6
DateTime: Friday December 7 2012, 19:50:21 UTC
Region: eastern New Guinea region, Papua New Guinea
Depth: 118.9 km
Source: USGS Feed

Whoa, that sukka was directly underneath the Taupo supervolcano. EDIT: correction, ok not quite, about some 30 km north of there, now that I see a more precise location on google maps...

But pretty deep at 167 km. But see that's just it. Those deep ones right underneath a monster like that is what the world needs to pay attention to...not all the small swarm quakes like we get at Yellowstone all the time. A quake that deep and that large is likely just a subduction quake, but underneath Taupo, sure has me wondering...

Look at it...Just LOOK at it.
earthquake.usgs.gov...