Past, Present, and Future Earthquakes on the Alpine Fault:
What Lies Beneath and What Lies Ahead?

Presented by Prof. John Townend
(Victoria University of Wellington)

This year’s Hochstetter Lecture will review how understanding of the Alpine Fault’s earthquake-generating behaviour has developed in recent years, catalysed by novel paleoseismological, geological, and seismological
studies including the Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP) and the 450 km-long Southern Alps Long Skinny Array (SALSA), and how technological advances such as optical fibre sensing, “virtual earthquakes”, and artificial intelligence are providing new insight into fault zone structure and earthquake generation.
The concluding portion of the lecture will address what steps the earthquake science community could take now to record invaluable data during the next Alpine Fault earthquake and thus inform global understanding of earthquake rupture phenomena.

Brought to you be the Geoscience Society of New Zealand