Abstract
THE Central Office of Meteorology and Geophysics at Rome has recently issued its catalogue of macrosismi, or sensible earthquakes, for the year 1935 (Boll. Sismico, anno 1935). The total number known is 134, or about one third of the average number (412) for the forty years 1891-1930. Their intensity, also, was much less than usual ; more than half were so slight that they were not able to shake doors or windows, and only one, with its origin in Etna, approached destructive strength, several houses in Acireale being slightly injured. The seismological section of the Dominion Observatory at Wellington has issued a somewhat less detailed report on the New Zealand earthquakes of 1936 (Bulletin No. 125 ; 1937). From this, we learn that the number of sensible earthquakes was 125, less than half the average (264) for the preceding twelve years, but nearly the same as the average number (122) for the eight years excluding 1929-32, in which many after-shocks of the great earthquakes of 1929 and 1931 occurred. Five of the shocks were of intensity 6 (Rossi-Forel scale), that is, none could be ranked as a destructive earthquake. The epicentral regions (Buller River and Hawkes Bay) of the two earthquakes referred to seem to have resumed their normal activity.
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Earthquakes in Italy and in New Zealand. Nature 142, 567 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142567c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142567c0