The 1971 Solomon Islands earthquakes occurred in the northern part of the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

, within

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

as a

doublet earthquake __NOTOC__ In seismology, doublet earthquakes – and more generally, multiplet earthquakes – were originally identified as multiple earthquakes with nearly identical waveforms originating from the same location. They are now characterized as sing ...

. The first large shock occurred on July 14 at 06:11 UTC with a magnitude of 8.0. The second large event occurred on July 26 at 01:23 UTC with a magnitude of 8.1. The initial event on July 14 caused a tsunami, which was observed in

Rabaul Rabaul () is a township in the East New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, on the island of New Britain. It lies about 600 kilometres to the east of the island of New Guinea. Rabaul was the provincial capital and most important settlement in ...

. The earthquake of July 26 triggered a tsunami with a runup in

New Britain New Britain ( tpi, Niu Briten) is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi the Dam ...

. Shallow, large thrust earthquakes in the Solomon Islands tend to occur in multiplets. Examples of such earthquakes include the doublets occurred in 1971, 1974, and 1975. The 1971 doublet occurred at the junction of two trenches. The July 14 earthquake is located in the northwestern Solomon Islands Trench, while the July 26 earthquake ruptured the northeastern New Britain Trench. The July 14 earthquake and the July 26 earthquake were caused by the subduction of the

Solomon Sea Plate The Solomon Sea Plate is a minor tectonic plate to the northwest of the Solomon Islands archipelago in the south Pacific Ocean. Itt roughly corresponds with the Solomon Sea east of Papua New Guinea. Tectonics The tectonic regime in this part of t ...

beneath the

Pacific Plate The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate. The plate first came into existence 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and Iza ...

and the Bismark Sea Plate, respectively. The 1971 sequence had the largest earthquake in 50 years in this region as it occurred.

References

External links

* {{Earthquakes in Papua New Guinea 1971 earthquakes 1971 tsunamis Megathrust earthquakes in the Solomon Islands Earthquakes in Papua New Guinea Tsunamis in Papua New Guinea 1971 disasters in Papua New Guinea 1971 disasters in Oceania

See also

References

External links