The Turangi-Tokaanu area seems to be going through a bit of a shaky time at the moment. A swarm of small earthquakes has been recorded over the past few weeks with events today ramping up slightly. The largest of these was this morning and measured M4.4. All the quakes seem to be quite shallow. The area is known for its geothermal activity and when we were up there a few weeks ago, steam was evident around this location.
Details of recent earthquakes can be found on the GeoNet website. I dumped a few of the locations of today's events into Google Earth just to see where things plot up. Note that some of the locations represent more than one event - one of the locations is where three of the events come back to (give or take a bit for rounding errors I guess).
Here is a link to the Get Ready Get Thru information for earthquakes.
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Two strongly felt earthquakes occurred near Turangi overnight. These events had magnitude 4.3 and 4.4 and occurred at 1:01 am and 5:21 am local time respectively. These earthquakes are part of a swarm including several hundred earthquakes that have been occurring between Lake Rotoaira and Turangi over the past several weeks. The events from last night are the largest to date in the swarm. The largest events are occurring 5-10 km southwest to west of Turangi and at depths of less than 10 km.
Earthquakes of this size and depth are likely to be felt by most people who are indoors and will awaken people who are sleeping. Such earthquakes are likely to shift unstable objects in the household and may break glassware or crockery. Loose material may be dislodged from sloping ground, e.g. existing slides, talus slopes.
Earthquake swarms having this character and magnitude range are common in the volcanic area between Ruapehu and the Bay of Plenty, and are not unexpected. Fluctuations in the numbers and magnitudes of earthquakes are commonly observed in this region. GNS Science continues to monitor local seismicity in the area.
Arthur Jolly Duty Volcanologist
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