Alpine fault

The website Science Daily has an article on the alpine fault (here). This news has been reported in New Zealand, but the Science Daily approach is less emotive.

The introduction reads:

A new study published in the journal Science, co-authored by University of Nevada, Reno's Glenn Biasi and colleagues at GNS Science in New Zealand, finds that very large earthquakes have been occurring relatively regularly on the Alpine Fault along the southwest coastline of New Zealand for at least 8,000 years.

The team established that the Alpine Fault causes, on average, earthquakes of around a magnitude 8 every 330 years. They estimate the 50-year probability of a large Alpine fault earthquake to be about 27 percent.

The University of Nevada, Reno media release is here.