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Visiting geologist says mining caused '89 quake, By Michael Condon / Catherine Clifford, ABC Rural NSW New South Wales, Feb 07

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Visiting geologist says mining caused '89 quake

By Michael Condon / Catherine Clifford

Wednesday, 21/02/2007, ABC Rural NSW

A new report from a geologist at Columbia University in the United States says the 1989 earthquake in Newcastle was triggered by coal mining, and not seismic activity.

The University of Newcastle has invited Dr Christian Klose to discuss his findings, which suggest mass removal of coal and water over time changed the region's geological stress field in the Earth's crust, causing the quake.

Thirteen people were killed and damage of $4 billion was sustained when the quake, measuring 5.6 on the Richter Scale, hit the city on 28 December 1989. Dr Klose's theory, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, flies in the face of existing scientific data suggesting low-level seismic forces along a fault line were the cause.

According to Dr Klose, removal of sub-surface water during the coal mining process was a significant precipitating factor. "Over 500 megatonnes of coal in the last 200 years was produced, whereas four times more water was taken, and the water is more the reason for triggering that earthquake," says Dr Klose.

But not everyone is happy with the assessment of Dr Klose that mining caused the Newcastle earthquake. Professor Ian Plymer was a professor at Geology at Newcastle University and he was in Newcastle when the earthquake struck.

He says he is not convinced by the views of Dr Close and in fact he is appalled by the conclusions that Dr Close has drawn. He says they were earthquakes in the Newcastle region long before there was mining do to the geological make up of the region.

He says the research Dr Close has done is incomplete and needs to be tested in other coal mining regions around the world before any conclusions can be drawn. He also pointed out what he says are a number of errors in the research.

In this report: Dr Christian Klose, geologist, Columbia University, USA; Ian Plymer, Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide.

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