By Chris McDowall of sciblogs.co.nz

I created a video to animate six months of 2010 New Zealand seismic activity data picked up by the GeoNet sensors. The animation begins in April and ends a few days after the 7.1 quake that hit Christchurch on September 4.

Keep in mind three things when you view the video

• Blue circles represent seismic activity recordings.
• Each event leaves behind a small, pale red dot to show the overall pattern.
• Most events are either small, deep or both.
• Note how sparse the pattern of spots across Canterbury is until early September.
   

Visualising six months of New Zealand earthquake data (Apr 1 – Sep 7, 2010) from Chris McDowall on Vimeo.