Queensland earthquake packed power of 15 atomic bombs

QUEENSLAND has experienced eight earthquakes in the past week with Saturday's 5.7 magnitude event alone packing as much force as 15 atomic bombs.

A map from Geoscience Australia showing recent earthquake activity in Australia.

QUEENSLAND has experienced eight earthquakes in the past week with Saturday's 5.7 event alone packing as much force as 15 atomic bombs, a senior seismologist has told the ABC.

Geoscience Australia senior duty seismologist Dan Jaksa said three of the quakes, which all occurred in an area about 120 kilometres east of Fraser Island, registered magnitude-5 or above.

At least one of Saturday's four quakes was felt by residents between Bundaberg and the Gold Coast.

"Magnitude-5 is the strength of an atomic bomb test," Mr Jaksa said.

"[Magnitude-5.7] is about 15 times bigger than a magnitude-5, so that's 15 atomic blasts of energy."

An hour after the magnitude-5.7 event on Saturday, a magnitude-5.1 earthquake struck around the same spot.

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Queensland can expect more eathquake tremors

Geoscience Australia seismologist Dr Andrea Thom told News Corp that Queensland could expect even more tremors.

"We can definitely expect to feel more tremors and it is possible we could still be in for something bigger still."

She warned coastal residents in particular should be vigilant because "these events can cause (a) tsunami".

Generally an earthquake needs to be more than 6.5 in magnitude to cause a tsunami.

Queensland earthquakes

Thursday

9:41am, magnitude-5.3
9:45am, magnitude-3.9
11:59am, magnitude-3.4
 

Friday

2:11pm, magnitude-3.6

Saturday

11.18am, magnitude-2.8
1.38pm, magnitude-5.7
2.26pm, magnitude-5.1
3.08pm, magnitude-3.1

Source: Geoscience Australia

There are 400 to 500 earthquakes a year in Australia but they are not near people or they are in the ocean, so not noticed.