[ADXA] QUAKE INFO

[LennyK5OVC at wmconnect.com]

Quake Hits Ocean Floor Near Australia




SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - An extremely powerful earthquake struck the ocean 
floor between Australia and Antarctica early Friday, causing buildings to shake 
hundreds of miles away on the island of Tasmania, authorities said. There were 
no reports of damage or injuries. 

The magnitude 8.1 quake hit 305 miles north of Macquarie Island just before 2 
a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey's Web site. An 
earthquake of magnitude 8 is capable of doing tremendous damage if it occurs in an 
urban region. 

The earthquake was felt throughout Australia's southern island state of 
Tasmania, said Cvetan Sinadinovski of Geoscience Australia. 

Buildings in parts of the state rattled for up to 15 seconds, but no one was 
injured and structures were in no danger of collapsing, he said. 

``If it happened underneath a population center in Australia, this would 
probably have destroyed a whole city,'' Sinadinovski said. 


A magnitude 8 quake rocked Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 
2003, injuring nearly 600 people. An 8.4 magnitude tremor that stuck off the 
coast of Peru on June 23, 2001, killed 74. 


Macquarie Island is the exposed crest of the undersea Macquarie Ridge, which 
is caused by the meeting of two tectonic plates and is the only place where 
rock from the Earth's mantle four miles below the ocean floor is being pushed 
above sea level, according to the Australian Antarctic Division's Web site. 


Sinadinovski said large earthquakes are common in the Macquarie Ridge region, 
occurring every year or two, but Friday's was the strongest quake there since 
1924.