(The abstract is extracted from Hoult R.D., Pascale A., Jones A. and Allen T. (2021). "The Mw 5.9 Woods Point Earthquake: A Preliminary Investigation of the Ground Motion Observations", Australian Earthquake Engineering Society 2021 Virtual Conference, Nov 25-26.)

Abstract

The 22 September 2021 (AEST) moment magnitude Mw 5.9 Woods Point earthquake was the largest in the state of Victoria’s recorded history. The ground motions were felt throughout the state of Victoria and into neighbouring states New South Wales and South Australia. Minor damage was reported in the city of Melbourne and in some regional centres close to the epicentre. This event was captured on many high-quality recorders from multiple sources, including private, university, and public networks. These recordings provide a rare opportunity to assess the utility of some ground motion models thought to be applicable to the southeast region of Australia. This paper presents spectral acceleration and attenuation comparisons of the Woods Point earthquake relative to a selection of ground motion models. The results of this paper provide further evidence that the attenuation characteristics of southeastern Australia may be similar to that in central and eastern United States, particularly at shorter distances to the epicentre.

The photos below were taken by Prashidha Khatiwada.