CAUSE OF THE ’QUAKE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 702, 29 June 1929, Page 9

CAUSE OF THE ’QUAKE

PACIFIC FLOOR MOVEMENT NOTED SCIENTIST'S OPINION Among the various theories advanced as to the cause of the recent earthquakes, that expressed by Professor Sir Edgeworth David, of Sydney, must cary great weight. “Earthquakes are caused by tracks forming iu the earth's crust, along zones where great masses are being set up by movements, usually of the ocean floor, along where a great ocean is bounded by a land shore line,” said Sir Edgeworth. “In cases of New Zealand earthquakes, their origin is in pressures transmitted to the shore line of New Zealand from the subsided movements of the floor of the Pacific Ocean. “Usually there is a more or less steep fold in the earth crust at the junction of the Western shore of the Pacific and the mainland. For example, in 1855 there was an extremely severe earthquake shock parallel to the coast line of New Zealand. It developed into an actual track starting on the north side of Cook Strait, 40 miles east of Wellington, and travelling 00 miles inland.

“Practically the whole of the shore line of the Pacific is from time to time visited either by earthquake shocks or volcanic eruptions.” Sir Edgeworth is one of the world s most noted scientists, a foremost authority on geology. He 1s a Fell tv of the Royal Society, and an honorary D.Sc. of Oxford and Cambridge.