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The 1982 Wyalong earthquakes (NSW) and recent crustal deformation

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

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Since 1959, when the Snowy Mountains Network was installed in southeastern Australia, several minor (ML < 4.0) earthquakes have been located in the Wyalong-Grenfell -Cootamundra region of New South Wales. However, until the end of 1983, only two earthquakes were large enough for focal mechanisms to be determined. These were the 1972 Temora and the 1982 Wyalong earthquakes. Both had magnitudes of ML~4.5 and were associated with compressive stresses in the crust. The Wyalong sequence in 1982 consisted of several hundred earthquakes, of which 26 could be located and the largest (ML~ 4.6 on 26 November 1982) caused minor damage in the towns of Wyalong and West Wyalong. Most earthquake activity in the region appears to be associated with the boundaries of the Bland Creek drainage system, which is a shallow depression containing on average about 50 m of Cainozoic deposits. The Bland Creek drainage system used to flow north into the Lachlan River, but its path was blocked as a result of either minor uplift or local subsidence, and it now drains into Lake Cowal, which is a closed basin. However, a lack of seismicity near Lake Cowal suggests that this crustal deformation is not associated with the recent earthquakes.

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Field Value
Title The 1982 Wyalong earthquakes (NSW) and recent crustal deformation
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/bd36ecb9-e202-4e6a-b6c4-9a41679a9fa1
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 20/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        146.89,
        -35.0
      ],
      [
        148.53,
        -35.0
      ],
      [
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      ],
      [
        146.89,
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      ],
      [
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      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "The 1982 Wyalong earthquakes (NSW) and recent crustal deformation". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/the-1982-wyalong-earthquakes-nsw-and-recent-crustal-deformation