Ping boodie

[den]

Hey boodie, did the earth move for you?

Comments

[rallyfurre.livejournal.com]

So, did it?

Didja feel it?

=^.^=

[makovette.livejournal.com]

Registration stuff required, Got cut 'n paste?

CYa!
Mako

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Australian scientists working on remote Macquarie Island in the sub-Antarctic were totally unaware of the biggest earthquake in the world for years happening nearby on Friday, the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) said.

The quake measured 8.1 on the Richter Scale and was the biggest in the world in almost four years, according to Geoscience Australia's seismologists.

Its epicentre was 400km off Macquarie Island and 800km off the coast of Tasmania.

Geoscience Australia said the quake hit an area known as the Macquarie Rise, in the Pacific Ocean, at 1.59am (AEDT).

The quake was felt throughout Tasmania, shaking buildings there, but failed to stir even the penguins on Macquarie Island, where the AAD has a scientific station, home to 22 Australians, mostly scientists with some Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service staff.

"Nobody felt anything," AAD spokesman Tony Press said.

He said AAD staff phoned the base immediately after being made aware of the quake on Friday morning.

"We grabbed hold of a couple of people having breakfast this morning and they didn't know anything about it," he said.

Seismologist Cvetan Sinadinovski said there was no danger to structures anywhere because the quake struck so far off the coast.

"If it happened underneath a population centre in Australia, this would probably have destroyed a whole city," Dr Sinadinovski said.

"In terms of size, this could have been more than 30 times stronger than the Newcastle event of 1989."

It was the biggest quake since one occurred off the coast of Peru in early 2001, Dr Sinadinovski said.

He said large earthquakes were common in the Macquarie Rise region, occurring every one or two years.

"This was an inter-plate earthquake between Indo-Australian and Pacific plates," he said.

"The last earthquake of similar magnitude in the Macquarie Rise region was in 1924."

Macquarie Island is part of the state of Tasmania. It is 1500km south-east of the island of Tasmania and 1300km north of the Antarctic continent.

Macquarie Island, or Macca, as it is generally referred to by scientists, is 34km long and 5km wide at its widest point and has a total surface area of 128 square km.

It is a Tasmanian State Reserve managed by the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service.

AAP