Earthquake hazard in Australia.

Symposium Dates 26-29 May 1976

Compared to countries which are situated in active tectonic zones, such as Japan, Turkey and Chile, Australia has only a small earthquake hazard. There is no record of anybody being killed by an earthquake in Australia and the total damage since 1950 amounts to less than a modest $10 million. One of the main problems of estimating earthquake risk parameters in Australia results from the uncertain statistical nature of earthquake occurrences. Over most of the continent very few earthquakes take place and those that do occur do not usually belong to any well defined zones. In addition, the causes of earthquakes in continental environs are poorly understood and our current knowledge of the state and behaviour of the crust precludes any realistic earthquake predictions. However, there are some regions such as the South West Seismic Zone in Western Australia, the Central Flinders Zone north of Adelaide, and the Dalton/Gunning Zone near Canberra where earthquake activity is high enough to be taken into account. Furthermore, for special buildings such as nuclear power plants, large storage dams, and hospitals, earthquake risk must be taken into account because the community is not prepared to accept any structural collapse for buildings of this nature