Aftershocks in Canterbury appear to be getting less powerful and less frequent. Photo / Greg Bowker
Aftershocks in Canterbury appear to be getting less powerful and less frequent. Photo / Greg Bowker
A "little swarm" of four small earthquakes near Taupo yesterday was not unusual or concerning, a seismologist says.
Between 11.38am and 4.25pm there were four quakes, all centred 10km north of Taupo and all shallower than 2km. A couple were felt in Wairakei, however they were not strong, with twomeasuring 2.4 and one each at 2.2 and 1.7 on the Richter scale respectively.
GNS Science duty seismologist Caroline Ashenden said there was no cause for alarm.
"It's unlikely it was an indication of volcanic unrest," Ms Ashenden said
"It is pretty usual. Most of the North Island will have earthquakes every now and then."
Meanwhile aftershocks in Canterbury appear to be getting less powerful and less frequent, more than two months on from the magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
There was only one reported in Canterbury yesterday - a 2.4 quake 20km east of Darfield at a depth of 11km at 1.43am.
Today there has been a 3.8 quake centred 10km north-west of Oxford in Canterbury at a depth of 8km at 9.44am, and a 3.3 quake, 20km south-west of Christchurch at a depth of 5km at 11.04am
Ms Ashenden said the continuing aftershocks in Christchurch following the September 4 7.1 magnitude earthquake appear to be easing.
"The magnitude doesn't seem to be as high and they don't seem to be frequent this week," she said.
"Hopefully Christchurch will start to get some peace and quiet soon."
Not surprisingly the Canterbury quake seems to have increased public interest in New Zealand earthquakes, with more people following Geonet's social media updates, Ms Ashenden said.
"On Facebook, we had around 200 followers before Darfield. Now we've got over 4000," she said. "On Twitter, beforehand we had 800. Now we've got over 2,300."
Around 3000 people have also signed up to Geonet's email update service.
