Cyclones, 7-hour Thunderstorms and … Earthquakes?

Hello Out There!

So as many of you have undoubtedly heard, two major earthquakes have struck in the Pacific during my stay so far in Australia – one in New Zealand about 3 weeks ago and the more recent one in Japan 5 days ago. Besides Cyclone Yasi and a brief 7-hour thunder and lightning storm (followed by a week of rain) – there has been nothing (knock on wood) overly significant happening in the way of natural disasters here in my neck of the woods. Today however, Cairns decided to have its own little geological occurrence party. Just after 4pm, the Cairns area apparently experienced a small earthquake which lasted only 4 seconds and reached a magnitude of just 4.0 on the Richter scale.

Last I checked 444 was neither a lucky nor unlucky number so I am reserving most of my comments or concerns as of right now … but I will say that it is rather odd for a country located in the middle of its continental plate to experience any seismic activity. If you take a look at the image I have placed below you’ll see that both Japan and New Zealand fall right on the boundary line, hence the reason for the larger earthquakes that have occurred there. Click on the image for the full scale version of these boundary lines and the direction the seismographic energy travels in based on the fault-line type (convergent, divergent and transform).

I am alright; the quake was not large enough to cause a tsunami nor big enough for me to feel from 30/45 minutes away. If you would like to read up more on these three earthquakes (particularly the one local to here and most recent) check out the links below.

The Sydney Morning Herald on the Cairns Quake

Australian News 7 on the Japan Quake