Magnitude 6.0 - SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND

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2011 June 13 02:20:50 UTC

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Earthquake Details

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude	6.0
Date-Time	Monday, June 13, 2011 at 02:20:50 UTC Monday, June 13, 2011 at 02:20:50 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	43.580°S, 172.740°E
Depth	9 km (5.6 miles)
Region	SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND
Distances	13 km (8 miles) NNE of Christchurch, New Zealand 207 km (128 miles) SSE of Westport, New Zealand 292 km (181 miles) SW of WELLINGTON, New Zealand 323 km (200 miles) NNE of Dunedin, New Zealand
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 13.9 km (8.6 miles); depth +/- 2.8 km (1.7 miles)
Parameters	NST= 74, Nph= 74, Dmin=17.8 km, Rmss=1.4 sec, Gp= 86°, M-type=regional moment magnitude (Mw), Version=7
Source	Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Event ID	usc000466f

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Earthquake Summary

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Tectonic Summary

The M6.0 June 13, 2011 South Island, New Zealand earthquake is a continuing part of the earthquake sequence that initiated with the M 7.0 September 3, 2010 Darfield, New Zealand event. The June 13, M 6.0 earthquake is a dominantly strike-slip faulting event near the eastern end of the inferred rupture of the 21 February 2011 M 6.1 earthquake. Both this M 6.0 quake and the previous M 6.1 event have an inferred fault plane striking approximately east-northeast. The entire earthquake sequence is broadly associated with regional plate boundary deformation as the Pacific and Australia plates interact in the central South Island, New Zealand.

This latest earthquake, similar to the February 21 event, is close to the main population centers of Christchurch, New Zealand. This region has suffered significant casualties and damage to buildings, infrastructure, and lifelines from a series of events particularly since the February 21 earthquake. Additionally, the earthquakes close to Christchurch caused substantial liquefaction in residential areas. The June 13 earthquake was preceded by a nearby M 5.2 foreshock, about 1 hour and 20 minutes earlier. There is no specific surface fault that has been observed for the post-September 3 earthquakes near Christchurch, nor evidence directly linking them to the observed September surface fault rupture. There have however been a substantial number of aftershocks forming a continuous swath of seismicity extending from the September 3 events to the June 13 earthquake.

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Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center:
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver