Monday the 14th of November started early for Brian, John and me. Just around midnight I was awakened by my bed shaking – more swaying back-and-forth – in a slow, but insistent motion. Even though I was befuddled by sleep, I knew what was going on: Earthquake! I dutifully got up and stood in a door frame as I was taught in Geology 101, and waited for the ride to end. I am prone to motion sickness, and it was starting to get to me! The shaking lasted a long time, well over a minute. I could hear the water in the pool outside my room sloshing back-and-forth. John had gone outside and was watching signs swaying.
The quake was 7.8 magnitude (pretty darn strong!) with an epicenter located about 80 km (50 miles) from Christchurch. Aftershocks started immediately and we’ve had, at last count, 63 quakes of magnitude greater than 2.5 (35 greater than 4.0) in a band starting from the original quake and extending to the northeast. All this in 17 hours! The map is from the US Geological Survey earthquake website. The cyan spot is the epicenter of the M7.8 quake; all quakes >M4.0 are shown, with larger spots signifying stronger earthquakes. Christchurch is on the coast just to the right of the legend box. The red line is the tectonic plate boundary.
Back to ANSMET stuff: About 03:45 the hotel staff member on duty called to tell me that our flight to McMurdo Station was on 24 hour delay. We got our first “tent day” of the season! The question is, was the call made because weather was bad in McMurdo, or because the airport officials wanted to double-check all the equipment because of the earthquake? Wash-rinse-and-repeat: We are scheduled to go out on the 15th, with shuttle pick up at 04:45. Exciting times!
-Posted by Duck from Christchurch, NZ, and relayed by rph