The remote-operated vehicle ROPOS downloads data from Te Matakite - one of the undersea "earthquake observatories" installed off the East Coast several years ago. Photo / ROPOSScientists have finished gathering a wealth of new data about earthquake activity from beneath the East Coast seafloor - including some "very interesting changes" recorded around this month's magnitude 7.3 shake. A team of eight engineers from the Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility used a remote-operated vehicle, called ROPOS, to download the latest data from the two undersea observatories monitoring earthquakes and slow slip earthquakes. Photo / Jess HillmanThe information collected on the voyage will add to scientists' growing understanding of the Hikurangi subduction zone and the earthquake and tsunami risk it poses to the country. Scientists used ROPOS to explore Bennett Knoll seamount, a large undersea mountain located around 100km east of Hawke Bay at around 2500m below the sea surface, just east of the Hikurangi subduction zone.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 23, 2021 22:29 UTC