NZ Earthquakes

Earthquakes help shape NZ and are a constant threat in many parts of the country. The more we understand about what causes them, the more we can be prepared. About 14 000 earthquakes are recorded in and around NZ every year. Fortunately, most of them are too small for us to feel at the surface. However, many of us have felt the shake of an earthquake, and there are some big ones that have become part of NZ's history.

When? Where? How big? What happened?

23 January 1855 Waiarapa 8.2 Land raised in Wellington region

17 June 1929 Buller Sth Is 7.8 Much destruction in the Murchison area

3 February 1931 Hawkes Bay 7.8 Napier & Hastings badly damaged

2 March 1987 Edgecumbe 6.6 Much faulting and land sinking

GeoNet – Recent New Zealand Earthquakes

Visit this site to find a list of the last 30 earthquakes in NZ

GeoNet – Recent New Zealand Earthquakes

Learn more about Plate Action

Learn about plates, earthquakes and volcanoes and how they are related. To playthis game squeeze the sponge to remove the Earth's oceans, drag the scanner and seismic tool over the map to see where Earth's earthquakes and volcanoes occur. What do you notice?

Earthquakes

After an earthquake of a 7.8 magnitude our class decided that earthquakes were a great topic to inquire about. We decided to learn about the layers of the Earth frst. These layers are ( from the outermost to the innermost layer)

1. Crust

2. Mantle

3. Outer Core

4. Inner Core

We have also learnt about tectonic plates. We cut out the plates and glued them onto a map. We saw that our area is on the edge of two plates - the Australian plate and the Pacific plate.

Today we completed an assessment task about these 2 BIG ideas. We are beginning to form some questions as we learn more about our planet.

Here are some of our questions...

What is the connection between earthquakes and volcanoes?

Can animals sense earthquakes?

What do we do in an earthquake?

Why wasn't there more damage in our area when the earthquake was a high magnitude (7.8)?

How does an earthquake work?

What causes the fault lines to move?

Do we have an emergency plan at home?

Do we have an emergency plan at school?

Why do we get lots of earthquakes in NZ?

Making Circuit Games

Our games are all tested and just about everyone was sucessful. We will add a photo show of our games. They were fantastic and presented beautifully. Well done everyone.