Image Gallery - Earthquakes

  • Buckling railway lines, Meckering Earthquake Western Australia, 1968

    Buckled railway lines caused by the 1968 Meckering Earthquake fault. The rocks in the foreground have been pushed over the rocks in the background. Reproduced with permission from Alice Snooke

  • Countries close to Australia on plate margins

    Tectonic plates. Earthquakes are common along the red lines that are the plate boundaries
    © Geoscience Australia

  • Closest city to an active margin is Darwin

    Plate margins near Australia. The black dots are earthquake epicentres and the red triangles are volcanoes
    Reproduced with permission from USGS

  • One of Australia's most serious natural disasters. Newcastle earthquake damage, December 1989.

    Newcastle earthquake damage, December 1989
    Reproduced with permission from EMA

  • Disaster recovery - Newcastle earthquake.

    Disaster recovery - Newcastle earthquake
    Reproduced with permission from EMA

  • An aftershock sequence may continue for several days following a small earthquake or years after a large mainshock.

    Seismogram showing one day’s worth of aftershocks of the three large earthquakes near Tennant Creek, Northern Territory in January 1988. There were thousands of aftershocks over a number of years
    © Geoscience Australia

  • Quaternary fault scarp, Southwest Tasmania

    Lake Edgar fault scarp, Southwest Tasmania, formed during a magnitude 6.5-7.0 earthquake 20,000 years ago
    © Geoscience Australia

  • This earthquake is most significant in term of damage and cultural upheaval

    Meckering earthquake fault cutting a road, Western Australia 1968
    © Geoscience Australia

  • The Indian-Australian plate

    Earthquake Epicentres and Recent Fault Scarps
    © Geoscience Australia

  • A seismograph has four basic components

    A modern telemetered digital seismograph (left) and an old analogue seismograph with the recording of a magnitude 3.3 earthquake (right)
    © Geoscience Australia

  • About 5% of the energy released in an earthquake is radiated as seismic waves

    A seismogram recording of a distant earthquake (teleseism) with various earthquake waves marked on it. The waves travel to the seismograph at different speeds depending on the type of wave and the path they take through the Earth
    © Geoscience Australia

Topic contact: earthquakes@ga.gov.au Last updated: May 31, 2012