A destructive earthquake that struck New Zealand two years ago has left its two main islands edging toward each other and a city sinking, scientists said.
However, the margins are minimal with the gap between the North and South islands narrowing a mere 35cm, while Nelson at the top of the South Island has sunk by up to 20mm, the scientists said.
The magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake on Nov. 14, 2016, initially pushed the two islands several meters closer and the unsettled fault lines have since nudged the southern landmass further north.
The earthquake struck just after midnight and raced north from the middle of the South Island toward Cook Strait, covering 170km in about 74 seconds.
However, the gap from Cape Campbell, where the main rupture ended in the South Island, and the New Zealand capital, Wellington, at the bottom of the North Island is still more than 50km.
At least 25 fault lines ruptured in the quake, which earthquake geologist Rob Langridge from the New Zealand government’s geoscience research organization, GNS Science, said made it one of the most complex earthquakes observed anywhere in the world.
Fellow GNS scientist Sigrun Hreinsdottir on Friday told the Stuff Web site that the sheer number of faults made it difficult to distinguish which was responsible for the post-quake creep.
“In reality we are having all this creeping going on and the question is, which [fault] is the dominant factor?” Hreinsdottir said.
Nelson had fractionally slumped, she said.
“The whole area is going down maybe 10 to 20mm,” Hreinsdottir said.
“It’s not a huge amount, but it is observable at our sites,” she said.
GNS principal scientist Kevin Berryman said that all earthquakes of magnitude 7.5 or above are very complex, but it was “certainly unusual” for 25 faults to rupture simultaneously.
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