A small earthquake centered near the town of Elmore, approximately 150 kilometers north of Melbourne, occurred early Tuesday morning.
The magnitude 3.5 tremor struck at 6:41 a.m., according to Geoscience Australia.
In September 2021, Victoria recorded a major magnitude 5.9 earthquake, the largest in the state’s history. The earthquake, which originated near Mansfield, caused damage to buildings in Melbourne and was felt as far away as Canberra, Sydney and Adelaide.
There have been more than a dozen earthquakes of magnitudes greater than three in the area since the 2021 event.
Aftershocks occurring years or decades after the initial earthquakes were common, Professor Cummins said, and more could follow, explained seismologist Phil Cummins.
“It is not unusual for large replicas to have their own replicas,” Professor Cummins said.
While Australia did not have an active tectonic plate boundary like in New Guinea or New Zealand, stress from other boundaries slowly built up to the interior of the plate, eventually causing them to fail.
“They simply fail at a much slower rate than they would near tectonic plate boundaries, where strain rates are much faster,” he said.
A small earthquake centered near the town of Elmore, approximately 150 kilometers north of Melbourne, occurred early Tuesday morning.
The largest earthquake ever recorded in Australia was a magnitude 6.6 earthquake that struck Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory in January 1988.
An average of 100 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or more are recorded in Australia each year.
Approximately every 100 years an earthquake of magnitude greater than 7 occurs somewhere in Australia.
“In active areas such as Japan, the Philippines or California, earthquakes of magnitude 7 occur every few years,” explained the Seismological Research Center.
“Activity in these locations is restricted to a much smaller area than Australia, so a typical site may be within 50 kilometers of a magnitude 7 event every 100 years or so.
‘Earthquakes of magnitude 8 and larger are called large earthquakes and typically only occur at plate boundaries.
‘It is unlikely that this will ever happen within Australia. Earthquakes of magnitude 9 and larger will rupture faults for hundreds of kilometers, so they typically only occur in subduction zones, such as along the west coast of South America or the southern coast of Alaska.’
