Earthquake Summary Poster

Poster of the Papua New Guinea Earthquake of 08 September 2002 - Magnitude 7.6

The posters may be downloaded for viewing or for printing on a color plotter. Adobe PDF (.pdf) format files are provided. Adobe Acrobat 6.0 or higher is required for viewing the PDF file on a computer monitor and for printing the PDF map graphic. IMPORTANT: The PDF map graphic was produced using TrueType fonts; change the following setting to:
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DISCUSSION

This earthquake occurred in a subduction zone environment near the eastern end of the New Guinea trench off the north-east shore of the island of New Guinea, Papua New Guinea. It resulted from stresses developed by the complex interaction between three tectonic plates, namely the large Pacific and Australian plates and the small Bismarck microplate. Relative to New Guinea, the Pacific plate is moving west - southwest at a rate of about 100 mm per year.

This region has recently suffered several damaging earthquakes. The most significant was on July 17th, 1998; a magnitude 7.0 earthquake generated a tsunami that killed at least 2,183 people and injured thousands.