Talk:2016 Kaikōura earthquake

Tsunami warning text

I have uploaded the full text of the 1.32am warning to save folks having to navigate to ministry site. remove when considered irrelevant Silent Billy (talk) 13:12, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Good idea, leave it there for a while. I know that submarine landslides off of Kaikoura could trigger quite large Tsunami as well, so it isn't just the earthquakes people should be worried about. I wonder if they have triggered the warning alarms in Sumner?  InsertCleverPhraseHere  13:25, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Merge with November 2016 New Zealand earthquakes

I am against, because the 6.6 quake is an aftershock of the 7.8 main jolt, hence the title is wrong, and we should (in my opinion) stick with the current title. The other article should be speedy deleted. Skycycle (talk) 14:45, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

No the 6,6 was the magnitude which was reported by Geonet NZ, 7,8 is USGS. But one hour ago, Geoet Updated it to 7,5 --217.24.225.200 (talk) 14:50, 13 November 2016 (UTC)Lukatz

Oh, thanks for the clarification. Still oppose though, for same reasons. Skycycle (talk) 16:43, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Tsunami bulletins

• TSUNAMI INFORMATION STATEMENT NUMBER 2:

"A DRAWDOWN OF 2.5 METERS WAS OBSERVED AT KAIKOURA TIDE STATION."

• TSUNAMI INFORMATION STATEMENT NUMBER 3

                           GAUGE      TIME OF   MAXIMUM     WAVE
                        COORDINATES   MEASURE   TSUNAMI   PERIOD
   GAUGE LOCATION        LAT   LON     (UTC)     HEIGHT    (MIN)
   -------------------------------------------------------------
   CASTLEPOINT NZ       40.9S 176.2E    1210   0.12M/ 0.4FT  18
   WELLINGTON NZ        41.3S 174.8E    1232   0.43M/ 1.4FT  16
   KAIKOURA NZ          42.4S 173.7E    1140   1.47M/ 4.8FT  16

Why USGS magnitude?

Seeing it NZ shouldn't we use the Geonet Magnitude of 7.5 in the first paragraph and the information box? https://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/region/newzealand/2016p858000 . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.109.234.60 (talk) 19:39, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

There are voices that the (near) newzealand determination is not the best. USGS has 7.8. Thats exactly what gfz-potsdam has. Generelly said: USGS has the most reputation and it should taken for the data for all quakes. --Itu (talk) 00:14, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

The difference in numbers doesn't have to do with reliability, it has to do with how seismographs work and the difference between the measurement of earthquakes from local vs international seismographs (especially when it comes to compound earthquakes on more than one fault). In any case, there is no point in arguing over it, lets just report 7.5-7.8 until we get a definitive answer about it.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  10:51, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

After further analysis and more data gathered, GeoNet has revised its magnitude to M7.8, so both sources now agree. http://info.geonet.org.nz/display/home/2016/11/16/Kaikoura+earthquake+update%3A+Magnitude+revised 86.6.44.87 (talk) 08:32, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm in Christchurch and to me it felt more like a 7.8 than a 7.5. (Expertise developed over the last six years of living here!)-- MattyJ44 (talk) 05:32, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Intensity and magnitude don't really correlate, especially without taking proximity into consideration.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  10:51, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and humans are clearly not measurement devices. --Itu (talk) 17:24, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Table

user:Svwiki99, did you use a script to make the table? --Itu (talk) 00:50, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

I didn't use a script, I just used the same table layout as on the 2016 Te Araroa earthquake page and put the data in manually for today's aftershocks. Svwiki99 (talk) 02:30, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Random mess with all data - a rant

Its a unbearable mess what wikipedia delivers to its readers. Its awkward without end. Yeah, it's Wikipedia... --Itu (talk) 00:38, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Times

Why suppressing UTC-Times so hard? Note: UTC is used in all scientific data. It's clear, it's defined.
And always bother readers with the most cruel/complicated time format available only. There is no alternative. --Itu (talk) 00:38, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Depth

Best is always using depths from other source than Magnitude. Better throw the dice. USGS has a depth of 23 km, easy to get. A number of 23 indicates clearly a better precision then 10 or 15 so it would be reasonable to take this. But that may be boring when its possible to change data form different sources every 30 minutes. And never reference your prefered number. --Itu (talk) 00:38, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

There has been a lot of confusion because there was actually motion on several different faults, at various different depths, simultaneously. Magnitude is similarly different on a local level than a international level (7.5 rather than 7.8), but should be cleared up in the coming days. As for the UTC issue, I suspect that this is currently being edited mainly by New Zealanders and would rather have it in NZ standard time as this helps indicate what time in the morning it happened, compared to other events.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  07:18, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Aftershocks

Isn't it time to stop listing the aftershocks - not sure how encyclopedic this is. Andrewgprout (talk) 07:41, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Cold make it collapsible or move it to another page, or list only 6.0 or higher. Your choice.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  07:47, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Generally we should list every single tremor, including rice-bags falling eventually in northern asia. Its clear: the more wobbles the better. --Itu (talk) 15:12, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Lol, its collapsed by default now, which is the right choice I think. InsertCleverPhraseHere  19:26, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Name

It seems that this earthquake is starting to be called the 'Kaikoura Earthquake' [1]. Our lede is also a little inaccurate as we are still reporting that the epicentre was near Culverden, but without an update on a more accurate epicentre, not much we can do. It seems that the epicentre of the larger part of the quake was near Kaikoura (probably the Kekerengu fault if reports of 10m motion are accurate). I'll keep an eye out and if this trend continues of calling it the 'Kaikoura Earthquake' I'll give it a move. If anyone objects, let me know here, as I think we would rather not have a move review that takes 7 days on a breaking story or have some sort of move war.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  09:02, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Moved.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  10:21, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

I personally think we should be naming this the 'North Canterbury Earthquake', rather than 'Kaikoura Earthquake' as it seems to leave out; That the quake didn't happen in Kaikoura and It effects more areas than just Kaikoura LukeChandlerNZ (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:21, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Geonet is consistently calling it the Kaikoura earthquake http://info.geonet.org.nz/display/home/2016/11/14/M7.8+Kaikoura+Earthquake%3A+Latest+updates. It looks like the name has stuck! Somej (talk) 06:05, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

There should be a macron over the o - Kaikōura - eg http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/marlborough-places/page-10 Jamie Mackay (talk) 02:52, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

An explanation for international readers: The early (circa 1800) missionaries who came to New Zealand did a fine job of creating written Māori words by taking care to write down each sound made by Māori speakers. In slow motion, the word Kaikoura is pronounced Kah-ee-koh-oo-rah by Māori people. When spoken at proper speed, the vowel sounds blend together seamlessly, but the elements are there nevertheless. When Europeans arrived, the distinction was not maintained, and most (including myself) lazily pronounce it Kye-koo-rah (as in cry). In the same way, Māori (Mah-oh-ree with the macron indicating a distinct and emphasized 'ah') is usually mis-pronounced by Europeans as Mow-ree (as in cow). A macron over the 'o' might confuse readers. Furthermore, changing the article's title might mean difficulties for search engines and those creating links to the article. Before editors make the criticism that Māori people don't pronounce the words that way at all, be aware that most of them do not pronounce the words according to the old style and have fallen into the same laziness trap that Europeans did. One really needs to listen to old timer Māori people to hear the way Te Reo should be spoken. Akld guy (talk) 03:36, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

The LINZ gazetteer spells it "Kaikoura" without the macron. Lcmortensen (mailbox) 07:13, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

But LINZ uses macrons rarely and inconsistently - eg check Taupō. I notice Wikipedia is also inconsistent - eg it has 'Taupo' as title but uses 'Taupō' in the main body text. But 'Māori people' has macron in title. TeAra.govt.nz is probably the most reliable source for macron usage, so if Wikipedia wants to start using them more consistently then this site would be a useful guide. BTW 'Kai'= to eat and 'kōura'= crayfish - https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/maori-language-week/1000-maori-place-names#k and http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/mataitai-shellfish-gathering/page-6 Jamie Mackay (talk) 21:36, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I was meant to say the New Zealand Geographic Board gazetteer, which lists all the official place names in use in New Zealand. I checked Taupo as well and the gazetteer doesn't list it with a macron. Lcmortensen (mailbox) 22:30, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

The answer is relatively simple. in english, the predominant spelling is 'Kaikoura'. In Maori the spelling is 'Kaikōura'. Some people put the accent on even in english however, which confuses the matter. The spelling in english is like café and cafe, both are fine, but most people don't use the accent.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:10, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

White space problem

The problem that I'm seeing and trying to report is as follows:
All's well as far as the Tsunami warnings section, with the infobox at its right. Then there is a half page of white space with 'Map of Kaikoura earthquakes' and 'USGS ShakeMap for the event' images at right of the white space. Then under that follows the Casualties and damage section, and the article continues on as normal. The white space was caused when an editor entered 'intensity = IX (Severe)' in the infobox. To try to fix that, I removed from the infobox what I thought was the unnecessary detail, 'Area affected = New Zealand'. That did in fact fix it, but it seems that another solution needs to be found. Adding 'clear' has not solved the issue. Akld guy (talk) 04:40, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

That was in Internet Explorer 11 (all updates). A similar white space problem is showing in Chrome, but not as severe. Akld guy (talk) 04:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

@Akld guy: I tried the page with IE11 (on Windows 7), but can only get the same problem to happen if I make the browser window very thin. Does this happen on many other pages? Here's how it looks to me in Chrome (and I get a similar scene in IE11): http://i.imgur.com/EMFd6hW.png --BurritoBazooka (talk) 06:08, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

No, that doesn't show the problem at all. Akld guy (talk) 06:32, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

The problem mostly seems to be gone after several recent edits. This edit in particular seems to have removed a great deal of the white space. Akld guy (talk) 06:30, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm still seeing lots of white space MarkTB (talk) 11:11, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Aftershocks in the box

What sense makes that number of aftershocks? Who defines a aftershock? (Who defines even a shock?) ? Or is it just to have one more cool number to be proud of? --Itu (talk) 14:19, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

And this tells us it has to be a clock, so its perfect inexpressively. --Itu (talk) 01:37, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Photos?

Are there no free photos of damage that could be added? Any Wikipedians nearby? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 23:18, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

None that I know of. If you know anyone with photos they have taken themselves that they are willing to share send me a message and I can sort the file additions out.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  03:21, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Shame, there are some amazing aerial photographs of fault displacement, landslides, which would work great with the article. Skycycle (talk) 04:47, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

some on flickr with creative commons licence: https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=kaikoura%20earthquake&license=2%2C3%2C4%2C5%2C6%2C9 Somej (talk) 02:23, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

We can only use photos which allow for commercial use, which limits the search to this. That does give us a US Navy photo, although a photo of damage might be more interesting than a photo of people in a helicopter. I thought there would be pictures of the damaged buildings in Wellington but haven't seen any with a free license. Perhaps Wikipedians in Wellington could get out with their cameras over the weekend.-gadfium 02:54, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Searching flickr for North Canterbury earthquake (and limiting the results to those taken since Monday morning) gives much better results.-gadfium 02:59, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

I have uploaded one photo to which I own the copyright to, how ever it would be good to get more photos, the only issue is access which prevents us from going on the ground and documenting photo LukeChandlerNZ (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:27, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Aftershocks table new format?

Hi and I have a consideration for the table for list of aftershocks. So the table now, is pretty large, and it is still likely that there are more aftershocks of more than a 5.0 in the near future, which will make the table a lot larger. I am thinking to do the same format with the one in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake as it is much better and has a good size. Typhoon2013 (talk) 05:37, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Ok since no one replied, I've already replaced the table format. Also one more, this is much better because it doesn't take up much space. Typhoon2013 (talk) 11:06, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

layout of "casualties and damage" section

if there's no objection, I'll put sub-headings into this section. Suggesting:

Kaikoura and surrounds

a focus on the issues affecting people in the immediate area

Wellington city

a place for the ongoing developments in wellingotn

Christchurch

effects on christchurch

National effects

anything else, like the scholarship exams. and teh sports events, if anyone thinks they're important enough to retain.

Somej (talk) 06:13, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Looters

Where the looters catched in New Brighton? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.63.74.103 (talk) 09:00, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

does anyoe care? Might be of more genral interest to link to all the people moving paua Somej (talk) 11:09, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Location: USGS or Geonet?

I see that the epicentre of the earthquake in the data table is that of USGS (-42.757, 173.077) rather than Geonet (-42.69, 173.02). However, the depth is that of Geonet (15 km) and not USGS (23 km). It would be good to have a consistent source of data, and given that it a NZ event, I think the data should reflect the Geonet data. Any comments before making the change? Mari370 (talk) 17:57, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

I'd prefer the Geonet source personally, however, neither the depth nor the epicentre are accurate from either source. Both probably represent an early indication of the epicentre from the first ruptures (usually the epicentre is derived from the first indications of shaking that hit the seismographs, and then from triangulation. in this case, the seismographs being triangulated from are different, as the USGS seismographs were internationally derived and the Geonet ones were local, resulting in different epicentre estimates). It looks like the rupture started down south, and later propagated to the north, where most of the energy was released. This explains why the epicentre is so far south but the shake maps show all the intensity being further north (also there is the fact of stacking waves from north propagating ruptures). Multiple fault ruptures during the quake compound all of this of course. I digress, but the short answer is that it doesn't matter, depth and epicentre are both misleading inaccuracies, but we should probably be consistent, so pick one I guess, I'd pick Geonet because its local and most of the other sources in the article also use Geonet.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  08:21, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Due to all of the above I would personally like to see the article emphasise the locations where the faults actually ruptured, and the places with the most intense shaking, and deemphasise the reported epicentre and depth estimates.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  08:25, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

"Citation needed" currently on deployment of Te Kaha and HMNZS Endeavour

If y'all need a citation on that, here's the release from the Minister of Defense saying that those two ships (Te Kaha and Endeavour) would also be deployed: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/ships-heading-south-aid-earthquake-response-0

(If someone who remembers how to do citations could add that in, that would be lovely.)

118.93.124.57 (talk) 08:00, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Unfortunately that release says that the ships will be sent, but we need a citable reference that says they actually were deployed. It may be that the decision was later changed and they were stood down. I cannot remember ever seeing a news report that they took part in the disaster relief. Akld guy (talk) 08:36, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Aftershock table

After user:Panamitsu correction to the usually hidden table of aftershocks I noticed that currently Geonet quake search shows 18 quakes of more than magnitude 5 in first hour (UTC 13/11/2016 11:00 to 12:00) and table shows only 8 of them. It appears the database has been updated since some of the earlier quakes first put in the table, which is not too surprising given the quake sequences complexity. I note some wonder the usefulness of the table but if other users think it useful suggest a general update, which seems to be a fair amount of work that I am not volunteering for. ChaseKiwi (talk) 10:55, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I've now finished fixing the magnitudes and removes the aftershocks which geonet no longer says are above magnitude five. I haven't however had a look at any missing earthquakes just yet. —Panamitsu (talk) 05:30, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes good work. I wonder if it is worthwhile adding this as a reference What’s in a Magnitude? as it specifically explains why you have had to correct the table.

ChaseKiwi (talk) 07:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Peak ground acceleration

The infobox says that the maximum recorded peak ground acceleration is 3.23 g but a 2019 journal article says that this measurement was due to a concrete slab bouncing, and is not what the actual peak ground acceleration at this location was. I haven't been able to find a replacement value. What should we do? ―Panamitsu (talk) 04:23, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I suggest that given the analysis in the 2019 journal article, it is not appropriate to record 3.23g as the peak acceleration in the Infobox. The Stuff article (citation 173) says that: The highest authenticated peak ground acceleration recorded in the Kaikōura quake was 1.5g in the Kekerengu Valley in Marlborough. Ideally, an original source for this figure would be cited, but if an original source is not currently obtainable, it seems reasonable to use the 1.5g figure in the Infobox and cite the Stuff article._Marshelec (talk) 05:33, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I tried to find where that 1.5 came from but was unable to. I am reluctant to use that Stuff article as a source because it contains an error: it says that the researchers determined that the actual peak ground acceleration at the site was 1.5g, but the journal actually article says ~1.2g. ―Panamitsu (talk) 05:44, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

OK, then it seems reasonable to quote the 1.2g figure that is mentioned in the journal article, as the best available source._Marshelec (talk) 06:13, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

But the journal article is not talking about the maximum recorded peak ground acceleration. It is just talking about the seismic station WTMC (located in Wairau [2]) which recorded the 3.2g. The 1.5g the Stuff article is talking about (it talks about 1.5g twice) is for a station in the Kekerengu Valley. ―Panamitsu (talk) 19:32, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Additional topics

It may be worthwhile including some additional topics. One is the Government response in terms of legislation. Here is one source: [3]. Another more specific topic is the restoration work that was required for the harbour at Kaikōura to enable the resumption of tourism operations, including whale-watching. I have collected several sources on the works to restore the harbour, and could add a paragraph if that seems reasonable ? Marshelec (talk) 07:52, 27 October 2024 (UTC)