Australia sits on the Australian geotectonic plate, which is drifting to the northeast at about 7 cm per year. High rates of seismicity are occurring where the Australian Plate interacts with the plates adjoining it. These earthquakes are called INTER-PLATE earthquakes.
Seismicity within Australia does occur, but at much lower rates. Earthquakes within the plate are called INTRA-PLATE earthquakes. Mark Leonard (2008) suggested four regions within Australia in which the seismicity occurred at higher rates than elsewhere in the continent. These 4 regions were the NW Australia region, the SW Australia region, The Southeast Australia region, and the South Australian region. This is a very simplified interpretation, and could be debated. But this web page will attempt to report on the seismicity of the Southwest Australian region, which is not far to the east of Perth.
Earthquakes in Australia are principally monitored by Geoscience Australia (GA), a department within the Australian Government, and based in Narrabundah in Canberra. Much of the data and maps presented in this website are derived from the on-line catalogue maintained by Geoscience Australia. Other institutions with a strong involvement in Australian seismology are the Seismology Research Centre (SRC), based in Richmond, Victoria, and the University of Melbourne. Amateur contributions to Australian seismology, which are many, mainly come under the umbrella of the Seismological Association of Australia (SAA), and mainly revolves around an active group of people in Adelaide. Readers who seek more information are encouraged to contact the webmaster, or the SAA in Adelaide.
Maps below the maps below show the seismic regions of Leonard (2008), and magnitude 5.0 and above events in Australia since Jan. 1975
References and interesting articles
Mark Leonard “100 years of earthquake recording in Australia” Bulletin of the SAA, 2008
Mark Leonard “Respite leaves Burakin quaking in anticipation” AusGeo news, 2003
Vic Dent “seismicity of SWWA, 2022 -2024 “, in Proc. of AEES, Adelaide, Nov. 2024.
Vic Dent “ a preliminary cluster map of SWWA” in “Proc of AEES”, 2016
