Shallow Seismicity

See what's been happening in your region recently.

NZMS 262 map sheets: click on the region you're interested in.

Select a region on the map.

Stewart Island. Dunedin. Invercargill. Waitaki. Te Anau. Christchurch. Mount Cook. Kaikoura. Grey. Wellington. Nelson. Hawke's Bay. Taranaki. East Cape. Waikato. Auckland. Whangarei. North Cape.

The surface of the earth is made up of a crust which varies in depth from 5 to 70 km. The word shallow is used to describe earthquakes that occur in the earth's crust. New Zealand is slowly being deformed by the interaction of two large pieces of crust. This causes stresses in the rock that makes up the crust, and from time to time it fractures, releasing energy which we may feel as earthquakes. Some of these fractures are many kilometres long; we often refer to the visible ones as fault lines. The Alpine fault, the Wellington fault and the Wairarapa fault are famous features of our landscape. But most earthquakes occur on unnamed, unknown faults beneath the earth's surface.

View the most recent shallow earthquakes in your region1 or click in the boxes on the accompanying map:

1 The regions are named and defined by the NZMS 262 map series.