{"id":557197,"date":"2026-08-03T06:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T06:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557197\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T06:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T06:25:09","slug":"successive-m5-plus-earthquakes-are-unusual-but-not-signs-of-major-rupture-earth-sciences-nz-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557197\/","title":{"rendered":"Successive M5-plus earthquakes are unusual but not signs of major rupture, Earth Sciences NZ says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists have considered whether the successive quakes were a precursor to something bigger, however, Hanson told Newstalk ZB they\u2019re believed to be isolated.<\/p>\n

\"EarthEarth Sciences NZ’s Jonathan Hanson says the recent magnitude 5-plus earthquakes in New Zealand have been unusually frequent but appear to be unrelated. Photo \/ Earth Sciences New Zealand<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always looking into that from a scientific point of view. But right now, most of the events over the last couple weeks appear on a geological level to be unrelated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re occurring in different places within New Zealand\u2019s tectonic regime, and they\u2019re also relatively far apart in terms of the amount of shaking being released.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanson said New Zealand typically experiences about 15 to 20 magnitude 5-plus quakes each year, averaging out to one or two per month, so five in the past month is \u201ca bit of a statistical outlier\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, earthquakes don\u2019t come regularly spaced through time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have these clusters. Most of the time when we see a cluster of events, it\u2019s like an aftershock sequence or there\u2019s something like that happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is pretty unique in that they\u2019re all relatively unrelated, and yeah, that\u2019s what we\u2019re thinking about them right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanson believed people still had the right to be concerned, with the quakes<\/a> serving as an important reminder that one could strike anywhere at any time. He noted New Zealand\u2019s seismic activity is also what makes the country so beautifully unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason it\u2019s so beautiful, the reason we\u2019re above the water at all, is that we\u2019re kind of straddling a plate boundary.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they\u2019re just a great reminder that earthquakes and their related hazards \u2013 landslides and tsunami \u2013 can happen, they can impact New Zealand<\/a>, and people should be prepared and have a plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have considered whether the successive quakes were a precursor to something bigger, however, Hanson told Newstalk ZB…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5003,192,3013,3146,8215,23285,28063,55060,274060,661,111,43,139,5006,69,1118,71769,169378,312,9542,8209,7806,5652,164120,684,22187,80],"class_list":["post-557197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-activity","tag-are","tag-but","tag-earth","tag-earthquakes","tag-experiencing","tag-heightened","tag-indications","tag-m5plus","tag-major","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-quakes","tag-rupture","tag-says","tag-sciences","tag-seismic","tag-sign","tag-signs","tag-successive","tag-there","tag-unusual","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557197","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=557197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}