Nature’s Earthquake Recorders

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In order to make sense of the sediment cores that can be retrieved from lakes near to the Alpine Fault such as Lake Christabel, it is worth having a think about what happens to the environment when the fault ruptures in a large earthquake. Under normal conditions, alpine lakes fill up very slowly with sediment that is fed into them by rivers. The particles settle onto the lake bed gradually, to create a sequence of finely layered mud. When an earthquake occurs, a number of consequences affect the landscape. The soft surface sediment on the bed of the lake gets deformed and folded, and the shallower slopes at the side of the lake collapse to create flowing avalanches (turbidites) that sweep down and across the lake floor. In the nearby mountains, large landslides occur that choke the river valleys with a chaotic mix of large and small rock fragments. In the months and years following the earthquake, the landslide debris is gradually washed into the lake, to form a recognisable layers on top of the turbidite deposit. Eventually, conditions return to normal, with the finely layered sediments gradually covering over all of the evidence of the earthquake and its aftermath. It may be hundreds of years before another earthquake sttikes that is near enough and strong enough to leave its mark in new layers of the lake sediment. Now lets have a look at the real thing – an example of a sediment core that has been retrieved from a New Zealand’s alpine lake. Back in the lab at the University of Otago in Dunedin, Jamie Howarth opens a core tube to reveal the layers of sand and mud from Lake Christabel. Here is a section of the core that shows the finely laminated lake sediments formed in normal conditions (on the right). In the centre you can see that the layers are slightly folded – this is the indication of an earthquake that has deformed these layers. They would have been at or just below the surface of the lake floor at the time. Here Jamie is indicating the remains of a leaf next to the blade of the knife. This is not far below the earthquake layer, and can be used to get a radiocarbon age which will help to date the earthquake event. This dark coarse layer is the next layer that was added to the sequence on top of the folded sediment. It is the base of an earthquake generated turbidite deposit. The material gets gradually finer to the left (‘upwards’) as the cloud of particles slowly settled onto the lake floor. The section shown here is the landscape recovery phase. Dating of the base and top of this layer in several cores has shown that it can take 50 years for the landscape to recover from an Alpine Fault earthquake. During that time, hillsides are destabilised, debris flows cover flat areas near to the mountains, and rivers are prone to changing course due to being overloaded with sediment. Finally we see the thinly layered sediment  indicating that normal conditions have returned to the lake environment. This map shows what can be done when this research is carried out at a number of lakes along the Alpine Fault. The coloured lines (purple, orange, green etc) show earthquake records that have been identified so far in some of the lakes along the length of the fault. You can see that the last earthquake rupture (in 1717 AD) was over 300 km long. The one prior to that around 1600 AD ruptured the northern end of the fault. Information about previous earthquakes is still incomplete, but the picture is starting to become clearer. With more research, Jamie and his colleagues will be able to show a more detailed history of the last 10 Alpine Fault earthquakes including the dates, lengths of rupture and magnitudes of the events.

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Lake Christabel

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Lake Christabel   J.Thomson@GNS Science This is Lake Christabel in New Zealand’s South Island. It is one of the many beautiful alpine lakes  to be found close to the Alpine Fault. Lake Christabel was formed when a huge landslide blocked the valley, thus damming the river that then backed up to form the lake.The present day outlet runs over the old landslide deposit of large chaotic boulders. Hidden beneath the waters of Lake Christabel are very distinctive sediment layers that tell the story of huge earthquakes that rocked the nearby mountains during ruptures of the Alpine Fault. Jamie Howarth from GNS Science, and Sean Fitzsimons from Otago University, have been investigating several such lakes to read the earthquake histories. I joined them on a recent expedition along with Delia Strong and Rob Langridge from GNS Science. The aim was to retrieve sediment cores from the lake to investigate the earthquake records. First of all a seismic survey was undertaken to find the best spots to sample on the lake bed. Sean is in the lead boat, towing a second dinghy that carries the equipment. The survey uses an acoustic source that sends pulses down into the water. The boat is towed along so that noise interference produced by a nearby motor is avoided. As the sound pulses are reflected back from the lake bed and its layers of underlying sediment, they are translated into a two dimensional vertical section image of the lake floor. A number of survey lines are made across the lake to give some idea of the 3 dimensional structure of the lake sediments. Once the best locations for sampling have been chosen from the survey results, the corer is prepared with a fresh 6 metre pipe that will be pushed into the lake floor to retrieve a sediment core. The corer is transported to the chosen point on the lake surface, and then dropped off the side of the boat once it is in position. After being connected with several airlines which are required to control the pressure coring process, the corer is lowered the 90 metres to the lake floor. The large barrel sits at the bottom, and is sucked into the mud to create a stable platform for coring. High pressure air is then applied to the piston which pushes the 6 metre coring pipe into the mud, releasing clouds of bubbles up to the surface. These bubbles allow Sean and Jamie to monitor what is going on with the corer at depth. Lake Christabel Corer Retrieval J.Thomson@GNS Science When the coring is complete, an airbag is attached to the line and filled up with air so that it  pulls the whole assembly out of the mud. The airbag bursts up to the surface from below in a spectacular fashion. Lake Christabel Corer Retrieval J.Thomson@GNS Science About a minute later, the corer assembly also emerges from the depths. It is not a good idea to be too close to this as it could easily sink a boat that was in the wrong place. The corer is then plugged and loaded into the boat to be brought back to shore, with its precious cargo of sediment. The PVC tube containing the core is then cut into 1.5 metre lengths for ease of transport. Each tube is carefully labelled to avoid any confusion  about where it was taken from and its relationship to the other samples. Lake Christabel Flight  J.Thomson@GNS Science Once all the sampling has been completed, the expedition is over. It takes several helicopter loads to transport the two boats, safety gear, corers, generators, samples and all our personal equipment back to the road end. The samples are then taken to Otago University for analysis. My next post will describe how alpine lakes like Lake Christabel have shown themselves to be very useful natural seismometers through this research approach.

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Jumping Faults

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The Alpine Fault is divided into several segments based on changes in its tectonic structure and earthquake history along the plate boundary. The northern end of the Alpine Fault is much less straightforward in comparison to the southern and central sections. This is in the area where other faults of the Marlborough Fault System branch off the Alpine Fault and take up a large amount of the total slip. There is still a lot to find out in terms of their combined earthquake histories and how these faults interact in relation to each other. In 1964, a concrete wall was built across part of a paddock next to the Maruia River, near Springs Junction (see yellow dot on the map above). The wall is 24 metres long, about 1.5 metres high, and at first sight seems pointless, standing alone and unconnected with any other structure. I visited this location recently with Rob Langridge, earthquake scientist at GNS Science, 50 years after the wall was built. If you would like to go there have a look at our GeoTrips website: www.geotrips.org.nz/trip.html?id=59 The wall was built directly across the Alpine Fault by scientists who wanted to test whether it would be gradually pulled apart by slow sideways creep along the fault. As you can see – it has suffered no damage due to any gradual movement since it was built.This very clear finding is in accordance with our present understanding that most New Zealand active faults are locked. They do not gradually creep between rupture events, but do all their moving in sudden jumps – during earthquakes. Right next to the experimental wall, there is an overgrown stream channel that has been offset sideways by about 10 metres along the line of the fault. Some years ago, a series of pits were excavated to assess the age of the offset river features. In one pit a piece of buried wood was found and then radiocarbon dated, showing that the surface is about 1200 years old. This means that the 10 metre offset has occurred since this time, giving an annual slip rate (rate of movement) of the alpine fault about 8 mm at this location.  This compares with about 27mm per year for the central and southern sections of the Alpine Fault, further south. The last rupture here at Springs Junction in about AD 1600 offset a nearby river terrace by about 1.5 metres. This suggests that at least two earthquakes will have accumulated the 10 metres of offset of the stream channel.

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A Ticker Tape Record of Alpine Fault Earthquakes

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The famous NASA image of New Zealand’s South Island clearly shows the trace of the Alpine Fault along the straight western edge of the Southern Alps. This oblique Google Earth view of the West Coast shows the relative uplift on the eastern side of the fault that has created the Southern Alps. The Hokuri Creek location indicated on the image is the site of a very important record of Alpine Fault earthquakes going back for the last 8000 years. A significant feature on this part of the fault is that it has actually been uplifting on its western side, instead of to the east as it does along most of its length. These diagrams show how the amazing record of earthquakes was created at Hokuri Creek. The first picture shows how the low fault scarp blocks the stream, ponding the water and creating a swamp. This gradually fills up with carbon rich plant material (peat) so that eventually the surface of the swamp becomes level with the top of the scarp and the river flows straight across it. When an Alpine Fault earthquake occurs, the fault uplifts by about a metre, creating a space into which the creek brings loose rock debris (gravel, sand and silt) washed down the river from landslides caused by the groundshaking. A new swamp develops once the land stabilises until the peat layer again reaches the level of the top of the scarp. Another Alpine Fault earthquake uplifts the scarp, and a new earthquake debris layer is deposited, adding another record to the fault rupture history. The great thing about peat layers is that they provide plenty of carbon material for radiocarbon dating.The time of past earthquakes is at the horizon where the peat changes upward into landslide derived sand and silt, so by taking samples at this layer, the earthquakes can be dated. At Hokuri Creek, by a quirk of fate, the river found a new outlet several hundred years ago, eroding downwards and exposing the sequence of peats and earthquake debris layers like pages in a book.This does mean however that the record of the two or three most recent earthquakes is not available here. You can see how  scientists used a ladder to access good sampling points. Amazingly, they were able to trace 24 earthquakes going back over the last 8000 years. Records of the two or three most recent ‘quakes, missing from this sequence, have been found in a more recent study at the nearby John O’Groats swamp. Scientists were able to recover several sediment cores there that complete the sequence. Carbon dating gives a date range within which the most likely date is at the peak of the probability curve. (To understand radiocarbon dating have a look at this GNS Science video. ) The dating results that you can see on this graph show how the Alpine Fault at Hokuri Creek has been rupturing in a very regular cycle over the last  8000 years. The intervals do vary – from 140 to 510 years, but the average is 330 years. In fact the most common actual interval between Alpine Fault earthquakes is 300 years, which is sobering when you realise that the last Alpine Fault rupture was in 1717, just under 300 years ago. EQ histories compiled by U.Cochran@GNS Science To give you some idea of the significance of this Alpine Fault history, here is a comparison with three other major transform faults. This shows clearly how the Alpine Fault exhibits by far the most regular earthquake behaviour of a big fault anywhere in the world. This map shows the location of Hokuri Creek in the southern section of the Alpine Fault. The earthquake record it provides tells us a history of large  events in the southern and central section of the fault. In northern South Island, the Alpine Fault divides into a number of separate faults know as the Marlborough Fault System. The slip rate (average movement) on the Alpine Fault drops down from about 27mm per year to less than 10, with the remainder being taken up by the other faults nearby. This means that the Hokuri Creek history cannot be applied to the northern (Marlborough) end of the Alpine Fault. This project has been led by GNS Scientists Kelvin Berryman, Ursula Cochran and Kate Clark. The media release about it can be found here, or go to the GNS Science website learning pages here.

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Imaging the Crust beneath Wellington

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Having had a close up look to the surface trace of the Wairarapa Fault (see recent post here), I thought it would be interesting to find out the latest about what such a major geological structure looks like below the earth’s surface. Stuart Henrys and colleagues at Victoria University, the University of Tokyo, Japan, and the University of Southern California, USA, have been busy working on the results of the SAHKE project that ran a large scale seismic survey across the Lower North Island in 2011. The purpose of this survey was to  gain a better understanding of the anatomy of the plate boundary and associated structures below the Lower North Island. This image shows the line of the survey that not only ran across the land surface, but also extended across the sea floor to West and East. Thousands of measurements were recorded, creating a huge dataset that had to be processed to create two dimensional seismic cross sections. SAHKE seismic survey. Stuart Henrys @GNS Science Here is an example of how about 80 kilometres of the section can be displayed to highlight some of the structures in the crust down to 35 kilometres depth SAHKE seismic survey. Stuart Henrys @GNS Science It takes a lot of work to be able to interpret the information to see some of the major structures. You can see that a coherent band of energy deeper than 20 km depth is interpreted to be the plate boundary and descends at a very shallow angle, Also how the Wairarapa and Wellington Faults show up as narrow bands of energy that become low angle thrusts from about 15 kilometres below the surface Stuart Henrys @GNS Science This is a simplified summary of the complete 250 km length of the SAHKE seismic survey: Initially the plate boundary dips at a very shallow angle below the Lower North Island. This angle steepens below the west coast (Kapiti). The blue area is rock that has been scraped off the surface of the Pacific Plate and stuck (“underplated”) onto the base of the Australian Plate. You can think of the Australian Plate acting a bit like a chisel as it scrapes the top off the Pacific Plate in this way, pushing the overlying crust upwards along the Wellington and Wairarapa Faults to give rise to the Rimutaka and Tararua Ranges.  The diagram also shows (in red) where the plate interface is locked (down to about 30 kilometres depth) and the (green) area where it produces slow slip events. Find out more about the potential for very large earthquakes to be generated on Wellington’s Stuck Plate Boundary and also about Slow Slip Events. Tararua Range,  J.Thomson@GNS Science The narrow, long form of the mountains of the Lower North Island may be related to their position above  where the plate boundary dives more steeply downwards with underplated sediments  pushing the ranges up. Cross section of SAHKE seismic survey. Stuart Henrys @GNS Science Here is a more detailed image for you to explore if you are interested, showing some examples of earthquake locations (grey dots) in relationship to the crustal structures: UPDATE 5th Feb 2015:  Have a look at this media release about further groundbreaking discoveries resulting from this research project – “Scientists discover slippery base on underside of Pacific Plate”

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Wairarapa Fault – the Biggest Rupture on Earth

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The Wairarapa Fault is one of New Zealand’s large active faults running along the eastern edge of the Rimutaka range from Palliser Bay north into the Wairarapa. It was responsible for the massive magnitude 8.2 earthquake that violently shook the lower North Island in 1855 in New Zealand’s largest historically recorded ‘quake. This Google Earth view shows the surface trace of the fault, with the Rimutaka Range to the west and the Tararuas in the distance. An interesting location called Pigeon Bush is indicated by the red circle. It is about 50 kilometres north-east of Wellington City. Photo Andrew Boyes / GNS Science The second photo is a view of the Pigeon Bush locality from the nearby road, showing a steep scarp uplifted by earthquake ruptures of the fault. The fault itself runs along the base of the scarp, which is the product of several earthquakes over the last few thousand years. A close up view shows some interesting features beside the fault scarp. Two stream  channels (middle and foreground of image)  appear out of the scarp, with no sign of any catchment gully above them. Meanwhile a bit further along (where the trees are) you can see that there is a deep cut gully in the scarp itself. Geologists have long recognised that the stream that created the two small ‘beheaded’ channels has been shunted along horizontally by the last two ruptures of the fault. In this photo, Rob Langridge, an earthquake geologist from GNS Science, is standing between the first (most recently beheaded) stream channel on the left, and the vegetated gully that was originally connected with it on the right. Some idea of the amount of offset that occurred in the 1855 earthquake can be appreciated from the image. There would also have been some uplift during that earthquake of perhaps one or two metres at this location.  We used a tape measure and recorded the distance along the fault between the centre of the now separated stream gullies, and came up with a figure of about 18 metres. This huge displacement is the largest offset to have been caused by a single earthquake on a land based fault known from anywhere in the world. (It is now known that subduction earthquakes such as the great 2011 Tohoku Earthquake of Japan can produce even greater displacements of the ocean floor) We also measured the offset of the older stream channel which was about 15 metres away from the first beheaded channel.This previous earthquake is thought to have occurred about 1000 years ago. The average repeat interval for ruptures of the Wairarapa Fault is thought to be about 1200 years. Offset stream channels at Pigeon Bush, A Boyes / GNS Science Here is an image taken using a drone and annotated by Andrew Boyes at GNS Science: About 45 kilometres north of Pigeon Bush it is possible to see a view of the fault itself in a cutting of the Ruamahanga River near Masterton. In the photo you can see how older grey rock on the right (west) have been pushed up relative to the younger gravels on the left (east) in a reverse fault. The substantial horizontal movement may also have caused this juxtaposition of older rocks against younger ones. Here is another view of the fault where it is known as the Wharekauhau Thrust in a cliff section at Thrust Creek on the Palliser Bay coast. Royal Society Teacher Fellow Phillip Robinson is inspecting the older shattered greywacke rocks that have been thrust over the gravels from the west (left), tilting the relatively young 50 000 year old gravel layers from a horizontal to a vertical orientation. This is the view looking south from Thrust Creek along to the southern tip of the Rimutaka Range, with Turakirae Head in the far distance. During the 1855 earthquake, a maximum of 6 metres of uplift occurred along this coast. A 10 metre high tsunami also swept along this coastline. Check out this previous post to learn about the amazing uplifted beaches at Turakirae Head. Note that you can now find out how to visit Thrust Creek (and many other geology locations) on our GeoTrips website here: https://geotrips.org.nz/trip.html?id=255

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Geolocating GNS Science Outreach

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Announcing our new Google Map that shows the locations of blog posts, videos and some of our website information within New Zealand. Zoom in and out to find a location and click on any icon to go straight to the online content. If you enable full screen (by clicking on the square icon at the top right of the map, or simply by clicking here ) you can switch layers off or on and change the style of the base map. We will be uploading more layers of GNS Science content onto this map in the future. To access the map at any time you can find it in the menu on the right hand side of this page. I hope you like our new GNS Science Outreach map!    Enjoy…

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1000 Geothermal Springs

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GNS Science and Waikato University are investigating one thousand of the geothermal hot springs in New Zealand’s North Island. The goal of this ambitious 1000 Springs Research Project is to understand and compare the microbiology of these springs along with their physical  and chemical make-up. That adds up to a lot of sampling trips, processing of data and investigation of the findings! This video gives an overview of the different types of Geothermal Springs in the area: The GeoTrips website  www.geotrips.org.nz  includes lots of geothermal areas that you can visit such as this one at Waiotapu: www.geotrips.org.nz/trip.html?id=50 Some of these hot springs are scummy looking puddles like this one, that don’t seem to have much to say about themselves apart from the obvious message to stay clear and avoid being swallowed up by scalding mud. Bruce Mountain/ GNS Science Others are of course very spectacular and beautiful iconic tourist attractions such as the Champagne Pool at Waiotapu… A few days ago I joined some of the GNS Science team; Jean Power, Dave Evans and Matt Stott, (who leads the project)  on a sampling trip to Whakarewarewa village in Rotorua, The village is an extraordinary place, where a community has learnt to live in close relationship to an ever changing geothermal environment. Home heating, hot water, cooking and bathing is provided by the hot springs, although there are interesting downsides, such as occasional ground collapses and holes appearing next to houses Safety first! Investigating hot springs is a potentially hazardous activity. Sometimes well known and well trodden areas have suddenly caved in because the ground gets eroded from below. Scientists use various safety techniques as well as a strong sense of caution when approaching the springs. Dave Evans uses a long pole to reach into a hot pool to get a water sample, while Jean adds information to a tablet with an application that allows all the data to be quickly uploaded to the 1000 Springs database website.  Several water samples are taken, and the team measures the temperature, pH, conductivity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen and the redox potential of each spring, as well as taking photographs and other metadata. Geothermal ecosystems are globally rare and little is known about the unique populations of microorganisms (Bacteria and Archaea) that inhabit these environments or the ecological conditions that support them. Here Dave is carefully labellling the sample bottles. Samples are filtered and prepared for analysis after returning to the lab. To identify all the different species, the DNA in the sample is extracted and analysed, and the chemical content of the water and the dissolved gases is measured. Extremophiles are microorganisms that thrive in harsh environmental conditions – where temperatures can be as high as 122˚C, the pH can range from highly acidic to strongly alkaline, and there are elevated concentrations of salts and/or heavy metals. Different microbes are responsible for the spectacular colours seen in hot springs. The colour zonation relates directly to particular temperature ranges which the resident species have tolerance for. There are thought to be more than 15000 geothermal features in New Zealand, and each of them will have a distinct microbial community and often include many undiscovered species The selected springs span the known pH ranges (pH 0-9) and temperature ranges (20°C-99°C) or have unusual geochemical or geophysical profiles. Sites with high cultural or conservation value are also included. All this new knowledge will allow New Zealand to assess the conservation, cultural, recreational and resource development value of the microbes in geothermal ecosystems, and enable further future microbial ecology research and discovery. Photo by Matt Stott / GNS Science My role in these field trips is to visually document the scientific process and communicate about the research to all who are interested. Scientists are invariably passionate and enthusiastic about their work, and are keen for others to find out about what they do. Here is our video of the 1000 Springs team in action:

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Mount Cook Rockfall

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Hooker Valley rockfall. – Simon Cox / GNS Science On the evening of Monday 14th July there was a large rockfall from the western slopes of Mount Cook into the Hooker Valley.   Staff from the Department of Conservation and GNS Scientist Simon Cox flew over the area  to make assessments of the  impact. The first photo shows the view towards Mount Cook with the dark shadow of the rockfall splaying out onto the Hooker Glacier on the left. Photo J Spencer / DoC Approaching the area, the scale of the rockfall starts to become apparent. As well as the debris fan there is a wide expanse of dust that settled on the opposite wall of the valley. Photo Simon Cox / GNS Science The devastated area of mountainside that was swept by the avalanche is well over a kilometre across. Photo Simon Cox / GNS Science Because of a prominent ridge in the path of the rockfall, the debris divided into two separate lobes as it poured down the mountain. This photo shows the smaller, upper branch and the white ridge (known as Pudding Rock) that obstructed the torrent of rock and ice debris. In the foreground is the dust covered icefall. Photo Simon Cox / GNS Science This is a view of the area from higher up, looking down the valley. Simon estimated that roughly 900 000 cubic metres of rock debris are scattered on the valley floor, having travelled  up to 3.9 kilometres and fallen a vertical distance of 1600 metres. On its journey down the mountain, the avalanche scooped up possibly three times as much snow and ice which mixed with the rock material. Photo Simon Cox / GNS Science A view upwards towards the low peak of Mount Cook, showing the source area and path of the rock avalanche Photo: DoC / J Spencer  Amazingly, the Gardiner Hut just avoided obliteration due to its favourable location on the tip of Pudding Rock. However it was badly damaged.   Photo: DoC / J Spencer The toilet block was crushed and the hut pushed off its foundations. Luckily no-one was inside. Photo DoC / D Dittmer Clinging to the mountain amongst a sea of debris. The Gardiner Hut was in the best possible position to (almost) avoid destruction in this rockfall event. Photo DoC / D Dittmer Finally here is a view of the headscarp with the 300 metre high x 100 – 150 metre wide grey rockfall scar on the cliff face, the source of all the devastation. You can visit the end of the Hooker Glacier, one of the spectacular day walks at Mount Cook: Here is the GeoTrips link: www.geotrips.org.nz/trip.html?id=685

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Drilling into New Zealand’s most dangerous fault

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The Alpine Fault forms the plate boundary in New Zealand’s South Island, and is a very significant fault on a global scale. It last ruptured in 1717 AD and appears to produce large earthquakes on average every 330 years. Its next rupture has a high probability (28%)  of occurring in the next 50 years. Each time the Alpine Fault ruptures, there is roughly 8 metres of sideways movement and about 1 to 2 metres of vertical uplift on the eastern side. These magnitude 8 (M8) earthquakes can rip the fault along about 400 kilometres of its length. Slowly, over millions of years, this is what has created the Southern Alps, and offset rock formations on each side of the fault sideways by a phenomenal 480 kilometres. Massive and continual erosion of the Southern Alps keeps them relatively small (below 4000m) inspite of about 20 kilometres of uplift over the last 12 million years. For a lot more information about the Alpine Fault and its earthquakes, check the GNS Science website. Later this year, scientists plan to drill through the Alpine Fault at a depth of more than one kilometre  to sample the rocks and fluids of the fault at depth, and to make geophysical measurements down the borehole to better understand what a fault looks like as it evolves towards its next earthquake rupture. This is phase two of the Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP-2). The first phase of the project (DFDP-1) was successfully carried out in 2011 when two shallow boreholes were drilled through the fault to about 150m and the first observatory set up at Gaunt Creek.  DFDP-2 will involve drilling a short distance away in the Whataroa River valley, not far upstream from the road bridge on State Highway 6. This short video gives some background and information about the project:  You can also find out lots more detailed information about DFDP-2 at the GNS public wiki site here. The prospect of drilling through a massive fault could  sound alarming to some people. Is there a possibility that this project could cause a damaging earthquake? Check this next video to hear about the safety review:

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