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Significant Events

Historial Australian Earthquakes

Although Australia is not on a plate boundary we do still have earthquakes. These are caused by the pressures that build up from the tectonic plate boundaries around Australia. On average there are 80 earthquakes a year in Australia with a magnitude of 3 or greater1. Plotted below are earthquakes bigger than magnitude 3 that occurred in Australia from 1955 – 20141. The size of the circles gives an indication of the relative size of the earthquake.

Some significant earthquakes are also plotted in yellow.

 

Year

Location

Magnitude

Damage/Description

1902

Warooka ML 6.0 First recorded earthquake deaths in Australia
1918 Gladstone ML 6.0

Damage in Rockhampton and Bundaberg

1941 Meeberrie ML 7.2

Australia’s largest known onshore earthquake

1946 Bass Strait ML 6.0

Caused local minor damage

1954 Adelaide ML 5.5

3 injuries Major damage, Cost ~$90 million2

1968 Meckering ML 6.7

20 injured and cost ~$1.5 million2

1979 Cadoux MB 6.2

1 Injury, cost ~$3.8 million3 and caused a blackout in Perth

1988 Tennant Creek Ms 6.3, 6.4 and 6.7

3 large earthquakes in less than 12 hours. Damaged SA to Darwin gas pipeline

1989 Newcastle ML 5.6

13 Deaths, 160 injuries, 50000 buildings damaged. Cost ~$862 million

2010 Kalgoorlie ML 5.0

Caused significant damage to historic buildings. Cost ~$4.5 million

 2012 Moe ML 5.4 

Felt more then 300km away. Minor local damage 

1 From Insurance Council Australia, 2 From University of Western Australia, 3 From Geoscience Australia Database

 

Significant Events Recorded by the AuSIS Network

 

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