{"id":313599,"date":"2026-03-05T03:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/313599\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T03:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:23:08","slug":"northland-quakes-this-week-scientists-log-cluster-in-kerikeri-inlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/313599\/","title":{"rendered":"Northland quakes this week: Scientists log cluster in Kerikeri inlet"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the last month, the network had not \u201cdetected\u201d any earthquakes in the region<\/a>. However, ESNZ scientists manually recorded six earthquakes this week. All were about 5km deep.<\/p>\n

Two of the Kerikeri Inlet quakes were recorded on Tuesday, March 3. The larger was magnitude 2.1, at 5.05pm. Another at 8.59pm measured magnitude 1.8.<\/p>\n

Two more in the inlet on March 2 measured magnitude 1 (at 3.38am) and magnitude 1.3 (at 8.40am).<\/p>\n

On March 1, there was a magnitude 2 earthquake in the inlet.<\/p>\n

The quake near Moerewa struck on March 2, measuring 1.4. <\/p>\n

Taylor-Offord said it was \u201cnot unusual\u201d that these earthquakes, although felt in Northland, were not automatically recorded by GeoNet. They were small in magnitude and occurred at the margins of the monitoring network.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile GeoNet didn\u2019t detect the recent events this week automatically, they were recorded in high-fidelity on the local network. From that data, our team at the 24\/7 National Geohazard Monitoring Centre has precisely located where they occurred and has manually added five earthquakes near Kerikeri to our catalogue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese events correspond to reported times of shaking around Opito and Doves Bay in recent days. We are now looking to see if there are more earthquakes in the sequence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are grateful for the direct reports we have received from the region. Feedback like this helps us update our catalogue more accurately around these margins.<\/p>\n

\" Northland has experienced six small earthquakes, as highlighted, in the past week (March 1-4), five were in Kerikeri Inlet. Image \/ GNS\" This week’s cluster of quakes in Kerikeri Inlet. Photo \/ Hauraki Gulf Weather<\/p>\n

\u201cNorthland is far from the active plate boundary, where the Pacific plate is subducting [moving] under the Australian plate. For that reason, there isn\u2019t much stress accumulating in the crust, which is what we expect for a tectonically stable region like Northland.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, these recent events are a reminder that earthquakes can happen in the region. In fact, the most significant events recorded in Northland occurred between 1963-1964 when a period of seismicity produced a magnitude 4.8 and many smaller earthquakes in the same area,\u201d Taylor-Offord said.<\/p>\n

A similar reminder came last year when a rare magnitude\u20111.6 quake near Kait\u0101ia \u2013 the first in that area since the 1960s \u2013 prompted fresh curiosity about Northland\u2019s dormant faults. At the time, ESNZ scientists said the micro\u2011quake highlighted how even in a tectonically \u201cquiet\u201d region, small amounts of stress can still build in the crust, and that more sporadic, low\u2011level quakes are likely as old faults occasionally release energy.<\/p>\n

Taylor-Offord said earthquakes had been recorded in Northland between 1964 and 2022. The challenge for GeoNet, the business arm of ESNZ, was that while the region gained a few more seismometers in 2022, the national monitoring system was still tailored to detect large or impactful earthquakes, with denser coverage in high-seismic regions like volcanic zones. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese events are a good reminder that we should expect earthquakes everywhere in New Zealand,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Recent research has also revealed how much remains unknown about seismic hazards in the upper North Island. A major Auckland study has identified dozens of previously unmapped faultlines<\/a> beneath the city, prompting trenching investigations to determine whether any have moved in the past 125,000 years \u2013 the threshold for being considered active. <\/p>\n

Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for theNorthern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years\u2019 experience in journalism, most of which she spent court reporting in Gisborne and on the East Coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the last month, the network had not \u201cdetected\u201d any earthquakes in the region. However, ESNZ scientists manually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[94642,170385,1887,8215,78,61011,170386,56387,16571,33450,8130,111,43,139,1067,69,71769,381,57103,30618,9433,115152,6100,107,1961,686],"class_list":{"0":"post-313599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-cluster","9":"tag-contributes","10":"tag-countrys","11":"tag-earthquakes","12":"tag-in","13":"tag-inlet","14":"tag-isles","15":"tag-isnt","16":"tag-kerikeri","17":"tag-known","18":"tag-log","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-newzealand","22":"tag-northland","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-quakes","25":"tag-region","26":"tag-reminds","27":"tag-reputation","28":"tag-scientists","29":"tag-shaky","30":"tag-still","31":"tag-then","32":"tag-this","33":"tag-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}