Queensland's Citizen Science Hub

Geological scientist Mike Turnbull B.App.Sc. QUT, M.App.Sc. CQU has made available to QSN a series of annual reports that he has compiled of the earthquakes, major and minor, in Queensland. This series commenced while he was engaged at Central Queensland University, but after separation he became a “citizen seismologist”. He is a member of the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society and a foundation member of the Seismological Association of Australian.

He explains:

“The four Queensland regions continuing to be seismically active are the Mt Perry area, the Wide Bay area, the Whitsunday Passage area, and the offshore Townsville area. The Eidsvold area is a very active area, producing up to two local events per week. The far south-west is quiet at this time but does throw up some moderate events once or twice each year; and it is currently quiet in the south-east corner.”

“Here is a map of the 25 earthquakes I have detected and located in Queensland (two just over the borders) from 1 Jan 2023 to 21 May 2023. They range in magnitude from ML 0.8 to ML 3.2 (the one near Lady Musgrave Island)”.

Annual reports

2011    2012    2013    2014    2015    2016    2016 revised

2017    2018   2019    2020    2021    2022    2023

CQSRG

The Central Queensland Seismology Research Group (CQSRG) was established in 2002, under the auspices of the Faculty of Informatics and Communication of Central Queensland University (CQU), with Michael Turnbull (Lecturer, and later Adjunct Research Fellow) and Kevin McCue (Visiting Professor, and later Adjunct Professor) as the designated researchers. This affiliation with CQU continued until February 2013, when, due to a divergence in academic focus of CQU and CQSRG, the researchers allowed their adjunct appointments to lapse.

From February 2013-December 2016, CQSRG operated independently of CQU, with the same two people conducting the research. In mid-2016 Dr Andrew Hammond, Senior Lecturer in Geology at CQU, joined CQSRG as a research collaborator. Mike Turnbull’s and Kevin McCue’s adjunct academic appointments with CQU were re-established in October 2016 and allowed to lapse at the end of 2022, at which time CQSRG ceased operations.

Mike Turnbull has now fully retired but maintains an ongoing interest in monitoring for earthquakes in Queensland on a personal basis.

Further reading

See also https://scienceqld.org/2022/03/18/uq_seismology/  and https://scienceqld.org/all-resources/qld-seismology/.

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