M7.8 North Canterbury/ Kaikoura Quake - Nov 14

[TonyT]

I think thats referring to what just happened, its a guess as to the cause, not a prediction. There seems to be a lot more damage from Cheviot north to Wellington than to the south.

[shovelopikis]

saw flashes through curtains and went and looked out to see sky was illuminating to the south, amazing videos online from Wellington and we saw it from Taranaki.

[Nev]

saw flashes through curtains and went and looked out to see sky was illuminating to the south, amazing videos online from Wellington and we saw it from Taranaki.

Most likely power lines blowing out...

'7.5 quake rattles Taranaki, leaves thousands of homes without power' - Stuff

[Nev]

Interesting comment from GeoNet this morn…

'M7.5 Kaikoura Quake: What we know so far' - GeoNet

Two earthquakes, not one

It looks like we’ve got two separate but related quakes going on. Our reports indicate that the combination of these two quakes lasted two minutes, with the most severe shaking at around 50 seconds. It was widely felt throughout both the North and South Islands. It looks like one was a strike-slip and the other was a thrust fault.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Just got back from Geraldine for the WE.
Felt it down there. It was like a gentle rolling motion that went for a minute or so.
Never woke up my wife and she's really scared of earthquakes

[RWood]

Interesting comment from GeoNet this morn…

'M7.5 Kaikoura Quake: What we know so far' - GeoNet

Two earthquakes, not one

It looks like we’ve got two separate but related quakes going on. Our reports indicate that the combination of these two quakes lasted two minutes, with the most severe shaking at around 50 seconds. It was widely felt throughout both the North and South Islands. It looks like one was a strike-slip and the other was a thrust fault.

I thought it was 2 quakes at the time, because of a noticeable lull followed by a shorter but nastier shaking immediately afterwards ...

[Richard]

saw flashes through curtains and went and looked out to see sky was illuminating to the south, amazing videos online from Wellington and we saw it from Taranaki.

We had the same flashes here too, wasnt power lines been blowing out as we never lost any power

[NZstorm]

saw flashes through curtains and went and looked out to see sky was illuminating to the south, amazing videos online from Wellington and we saw it from Taranaki.

We had the same flashes here too, wasnt power lines been blowing out as we never lost any power

A scientist on National radio this afternoon did confirm there is a known electrical phenomena that can occur with earthquakes that produces the flashes in the sky.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

There was that sort of phenomena with the Darfield Earthquake in 2010.
Sad about the Kaikoura coast.
I can see major road reconstructive work which will take ages to restore.
....as with the railway line, well....

[Manukau heads obs]

re the earthquake lights, good video here
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zea ... phenomenon

[Nev]

This map ℅ Canterbury Quake Live shows the distribution of just the 44 M5.0+ aftershocks (incl. 3 above M6.0) for the first 24 hours since Culverden's M7.5 at 12:03am yesterday morning…

Culverden M5+ quakes - Nov 14.png

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I call this quake as the Waiau Quake as this town was the closest to the epicenter ?

[Bradley]

I call this quake as the Waiau Quake as this town was the closest to the epicenter ?

All the major agencies are now calling it the 'Kaikoura Quake'

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Possibly because that is where all the media attention is drawn to.

[Richard]

Its really its part of the Hope fault line thats shafted starting from Waiau north, should be called the Hope earthquake

[Nev]

it would appear that 'Kaikoura' is the name GeoNet have assigned to Monday's M7.5 quake. Note that GeoNet's assigning of a reference name to sizeable/notable quakes based on either the nearest major urban centre, district or region is fairly standard practice.

Bearing that in mind perhaps I should alter the title of this thread accordingly?

[Razor]

Yes it started on a section the Hope Fault but then propagated vigorously into several faults in the Kaikoura area. Technically its two events so we could call it both Waiau and Kaikoura event. Perhaps join it together as the Hope-Kaikoura Sequence, which has a 'hopeful' message in there?

[tich]

Interesting that shown epicentre was much closer to Chch than Wellington, but very little or no damage here compared to the capital. Energy of quake must've moved northeast.

[Rogue]

Interesting map here showing the areas of shaking intensity, can also turn on different layers including the Geonet stations showing peak ground acceleration and velocity. Clear that the propagation was northwards.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... 00778i#map

As for the earthquake lights... I'm far more inclined to blame power lines and transformers. I saw this occur looking northwards up the coast from my place (while holding the china cabinet against the wall). Witnessed lots of individual flashes of similar magnitude and colour, accompanied by loss of power to our apartment, and corresponding with the direction of the beachfront street. I believe street lights have their own earthquake/impact shut off (we used to kick street lights as kids and watch them turn off for a few minutes) and they were already off before the transformers started popping. No flashes over the ocean. Also no power lines in this area.

Happy to eat my words, but to do so I would need to see more evidence or footage of this occurring over an uninhabited area

[spwill]

Did the Darfield earthquake in 2010 start all of this ? by creating weakness along the various faults, there has been a lot of shaking for central NZ since then.

[Richard]

As for the earthquake lights... I'm far more inclined to blame power lines and transformers. I saw this occur looking northwards up the coast from my place (while holding the china cabinet against the wall). Witnessed lots of individual flashes of similar magnitude and colour, accompanied by loss of power to our apartment, and corresponding with the direction of the beachfront street. I believe street lights have their own earthquake/impact shut off (we used to kick street lights as kids and watch them turn off for a few minutes) and they were already off before the transformers started popping. No flashes over the ocean. Also no power lines in this area.

Happy to eat my words, but to do so I would need to see more evidence or footage of this occurring over an uninhabited area

Up till Monday i would have been one of those skeptics, not now after seeing bright flashing in the direction of the epicenter, the fact we didn't lose power and there's no power lines within three km in that direction. Interesting listening to a fella on RNZ yesterday who's adjunct professor of physics at San Jose State University talking about it.


http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/progr ... -lightning'

[Razor]

Yes I have heard scientists over the past couple of days who confirm the lights are a bona fide thing, related to energy fields in the rock or something similar

[Manukau heads obs]

Interesting that shown epicentre was much closer to Chch than Wellington, but very little or no damage here compared to the capital. Energy of quake must've moved northeast.

my humble theory is that the shaking was more on the indian/australian plate (and so places on that plate,e.g all areas north of the fault line) felt it strongly) than on the pacific plate (which CHCH is on)

[Manukau heads obs]

As for the earthquake lights... I'm far more inclined to blame power lines and transformers. I saw this occur looking northwards up the coast from my place (while holding the china cabinet against the wall). Witnessed lots of individual flashes of similar magnitude and colour, accompanied by loss of power to our apartment, and corresponding with the direction of the beachfront street.

your power was going to go off probably anway, so that does not mean it went off from transformers that are along way up the coast...transformers only supply a small area

also, unless you can normaly see street lights/town lights at the same brightness as the flashes you swaw then not sure you can say the flashes were from tansformers..yes?

[Razor]

Now officially a 7.8, this is in the realms of a low end Alpine Fault number. Just huge