EARTHQUAKE SHOCKS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23061, 11 June 1938, Page 14

EARTHQUAKE SHOCKS

SUBMARINE ORIGIN" J PROBABLY NEAR NEW GUINEA RECORDING AT CHRISTCHUROJ « " ; -• \tr • * ;"*■ «" sss? • [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS CHRISTCBTTRCP, Friday c 'An earthquake of* submarine, origih is believed to have occurred near Ner Guinea at 7.55 a.m. to-day. The seismograph at the Magnetic Observatory at Christehurch recorded the first tremor, which, beginning abruptly,,lasted with varying intensity for . about five min:"Utes/^Eight »iniaiitw. k the first tremor a second shock, sharper, longer i and much more obvious than the fiwti was recorded. Shocks were recorded spasmodically for two hours.

Evidence of the direction and origin of the earthquake was obtained by Mr. H. F. Baird, senior assistant it th« observatory. From the interval between the first and second tremors he found that the earthquake had occurred about 4000 miles from Cliristchurch, and, I? comparing the amplitude of the movfc ment from the north that was shown by the instruments with the amplitude of the movement from the west, he judged the direction to be north-west* In this earthquake the movements recorded by the instruments were practioally the same, Mr. Baird said, the movement being upward. Had it been downward the earthquake would hart been in the south-east instead of in the , north-west. ■

While the Cliristchurch Magnetic Observatory had a set of seismographs suitable for estimating the direction and distance of large remote shocks, it did not possess a full set of instruments for giving the direction and distance of shocks occurring in New Zealand, Mf. Bairs said. "