Waking a quiescent continent
In 2006, the American researcher, Garrett Euler made a chance observation in seismic noise data in Cameroon: noise spiked at key moments during the African Cup of Nations soccer games. Not only did this inspire seismologists around the world to view noisy data differently, but the notion of an anthropogenic ‘footquake’ caught on. Recently, during a Raiders vs Panthers NRL game in Canberra, AuScope’s Earth Imaging team set out to create a world record in the category.
Response to the Viking clap at Sunday’s Raiders game, as recorded by AuScope’s Australian Seismometers in Schools team.
Aside from ‘footquake’ excitement in the last quarter, crustal activity across Australia, recorded by the AGOS seismic networks, has been relatively quiescent. We are still receiving data from the significant Petermann Ranges (NT) M6.4 earthquake in mid-2016, and data is currently being prepared for release, in print and presentations, by researchers from a number of research groups and government agencies. The most recent subsequent episode has been an M3.4 event located west of Yulara (NT) on the 1st of September, this year. Seismic activity in Victoria is also quiet at the moment, with the most significant event being an M3.5 earthquake recorded in the central Gippsland region in February.
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