Shallow M5.1 and M4.5 earthquakes strike Lake Taupo Volcano in New Zealand - Is the supervolcano waking up?

The Taupo Volcano has produced two of the world’s most violent eruptions in geologically recent times. 

And today, September 4, 2019, Lake Taupo, in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island, the caldery of the large supervolcano has been struck by two very shallow earthquakes. Is it waking up again?

M5.1 earthquake hits Lake Taupo Volcano in New Zealand on September 4, 2019. Thousands have reported feeling tremors on Nat Geo website. Earthquake map by USGS

Buildings shook as earthquakes jolted the central North Island on Wednesday evening. 

According to GeoNet, a 5.2 magnitude earthquake hit at 7.02pm.

A second quake with a magnitude of 4.5 and a depth of 5km was also widely felt.

Both earthquakes were centred 15km northeast of Turangi, under the bed of Lake Taupo.

The quake was shallow, recorded as being only 3km deep, was felt as far south as Dunedin.

A 4.5 magnitude aftershock followed two minutes later in the same location.

More than 4,000 people reported feeling the quakes on Geonet.

Other Taupo residents have described their houses shaking, calling it “the strongest in a long time.”

Geonet said the earthquakes were likely to be part of a swarm that started in July, and more aftershocks were possible.

The swarm started on July 10 and 160 quakes were recorded in the Taupo area in the following week. Eight of those events were between magnitude 3.1 and 3.8. 

Lake Taupo-area earthquakes were typically shallower than 10km, volcano duty officer Steven Sherburn said.

Quake swarms were common in the Taupo Volcanic Zone and several were recorded each year. Larger ones had lasted weeks-to-months and included many hundreds of earthquakes.

Taupo began erupting about 300,000 years ago, but the main eruptions that still affect the surrounding landscape are the Oruanui eruption, about 26,500 years ago, which is responsible for the shape of the modern caldera, and the Hatepe eruption, dated 232 ± 5 CE. However, there have been many more eruptions, with major ones every thousand years or so.

Considering recent history alone, the volcano has been inactive for an unusually long period of time. Some volcanoes within the Taupo Volcanic Zone have erupted far more recently, however, notably a violent VEI-5 eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886, and frequent activity of Whakaari/White Island, which erupted most recently in September 2017.

So do you think the Taupo Volcano is going to wake up again?