TAUPO EARTH TREMORS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18116, 14 June 1922, Page 6

TAUPO EARTH TREMORS.

OPINIONS OF THE EXPERTS. NO caus'e for alarm. THERMAL ACTION NORMAL. [b_ tj__g;r_p_.--p_sss association.] KOTORUA. Tuesday. Investigations have been completed by the three experts, Dr. Adams. Professor E. Marsden and Mr. P. G. Morgan, despatched from Wellington to tho Taupo district where the frequent earth tremors have been occurring. Mr. Morgan returned to Rotorua this evening. He stated there was no cause for alarm. The tremors were purely minor ones and not severe. They were small tremors caused by slight faults. No eruption was likely or probable. The tremors would pass when the subsidence had adjusted itself. Tho character of the country did not lend itself to violent explosions. The thermal action was absolutely normal. The lake was an inch and a-half lower than the usual, the cause being the absence of rains and heavy frosts preventing tho flow of snow water. Mr. Morgan leaves for Waihi in the morning. Interviewed in Wellington at the weekend, Mr. A. Warbriok, the well-known Rotorua guide, expressed the emphatic opinion that no special significance need oe attached to tho Taupo earth tremors. "The source of these earth tremors," said *Mr. Warbrick, "is, I am confident in my own mind, to be found in the thermal district of Rotokawa, a few miles out of Taupo, and not far from the banks of the Waikato River." There was, he repeated, nothing in these occurrences to cause people any fear at all; and, certainly, there was no need for them to have any fear whatever of going to Rotorua, which was many miles away from the disturbed area. "There is no reason to fear any eruption or any explosion to cause any danger, because it you are going to have an eruption you do not get earthquakes. They come after the explosion, not before. Indeed, the very fact of the earth tremors—for that is all they are—taking place, relieves the pressure, acts as a safety-valve, and does away with any danger of an eruption."