As space enthusiasts gear up for the much-hoped-for supermoon on Tuesday night, a New Zealand seismologist is cynical towards the occurrence, saying it could have activated the strong quake that hit the state on Monday.
Individuals from across the world are waiting to see the supermoon, that may cause the moon to seem 30 percent brighter than normal on Tuesday and up to 14 percent larger.
And while the supermoon will wow spectators and provide stunning images, Dr. John Ristau, a seismologist for GNS Science – a research institute focusing on geology, geophysics, and atomic science – is saying the supermoon could have also been behind a powerful 7.8 magnitude quake that hit New Zealand early on Monday, triggering hundreds of aftershocks and killing at least two people.
“When you get the tidal forces from the moon it does cause increased stresses in the Earth’s crust, so what can happen, potentially, is if you did have a fault that was almost at the very tipping point of rupturing, this could potentially act as the straw that broke the camel’s back,”Ristau said, as quoted by New Zealand website Newshub.
It is not initially a supermoon has happened at around the exact same time as a significant quake. Exactly the same thing occurred on March 18, 2011, when a supermoon lit the night skies only eight days after a huge quake and tsunami strike on Japan, activating the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.
In the lead-up to the 2011 supermoon, an earthquake that resulted in the departures of 185 individuals.
“If you had a fault that was right there and was just about to break, all it needs is just one tiny little push. So that tiny little push, it could coincidentally happen at the time when there’s a full moon, when the tidal forces are high,” Ristau said, referring to the north Canterbury fault.
“As the stresses build up it releases magnetic energy up into the air, and it almost acts like lightning, [except] coming from the ground.”
