May 23, 1989 Earthquake: Macquarie Station, New Zealand, Macquarie Island, Australia

Name: May 23, 1989 Earthquake: Macquarie Station, New Zealand, Macquarie Island, Australia
Start: 1989-05-23
Location: Macquarie Station, New Zealand, Macquarie Island, Australia

May 23, 1989 · M8.2

A magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck Macquarie Station, New Zealand, Macquarie Island, Australia on May 23, 1989 at 10:54:46 UTC, 10 km below the surface. It caused a tsunami.

Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date: May 23, 1989
Time: 10:54:46 UTC
Place: Macquarie Station, New Zealand, Macquarie Island, Australia
Magnitude: 8.2 (Ms)
Magnitude scales: Ms 8.2 · mb 6.4
Focal depth: 10 km (6 mi)
Intensity: VII, very strong shaking, on the Modified Mercalli scale
Tsunami: Yes: the tsunami it caused
Epicenter: 52.341° S, 160.568° E
Country: Australia
Region: Central and South Pacific
USGS record: The USGS’s page for this earthquake

Ms: surface-wave magnitude. mb: body-wave (P-wave) magnitude. NCEI’s headline magnitude is the best of these for the earthquake.

The toll

Damage: Limited (under about $1 million)

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

What happened

The USGS’s account of the effects of this earthquake.

Felt (V) on Campbell Island. Also felt on Macquarie Island. Small tsunami reported along the southeastern coast of Tasmania and in Jervis Bay and Sydney Harbour, Australia. Complex event, observed on broadband displacement seismograms.
FAULT PLANE SOLUTION: P-Waves NP1:Strike=120 Dip=85 Slip=0 NP2:Strike=210 Dip=90 Slip=185 Principal Axes: (T) Plg=4 Azm=345 (P) Plg=4 Azm=75 Comment: The focal mechanism is moderately well controlled and corresponds to strike-slip faulting. The preferred fault plane is not determined.
RADIATED ENERGY No. of sta: 4 Focal mech. C Energy 1.0+0.1*10**17 Nm MOMENT TENSOR SOLUTION Dep 15 No. of sta: 5 Moment Tensor; Scale 10**21 Nm Mrr=0.04 Mtt=1.48 Mff=-1.52 Mrt=0.02 Mrf=-0.03 Mtf=0.31 Principal axes: (T) Val=1.51 Plg=0 Azm=354 (N) Val=0.04 Plg=89 Azm=105 (P) Val=-1.55 Plg=1 Azm=264 Best Double Couple:Mo=1.5*10**21 NP1:Strike=39 Dip=89 Slip=-179 NP2:Strike=309 Dip=89 Slip=-1
GEOSCOPE MOMENT TENSOR (PAR) Dep 30.0 Half-duration 29.0 Best Double Couple:Mo=2.1*10**21 NP1:Strike=36 Dip=85 Slip=197 NP2:Strike=305 Dip=73 Slip=-6

From the USGS event page for official19890523105446320_10. U.S. Geological Survey text and figures are in the public domain.

Magnitude estimates

The magnitudes the USGS catalog lists for this earthquake, by scale and by who computed them. NCEI’s own scales are in the table above.

Mag.	Scale	Computed by	Notes
8.02	Mwc, centroid moment	USGS, official solution	Preferred · Reviewed
8.2	Mw, moment	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Reviewed
8.03	Mw, moment	ISC-GEM global catalog	Final · ±0.1
8.0	Mwc, centroid moment	Global CMT project	Preliminary

References for the magnitude and location

The USGS’s notes on how this earthquake’s official magnitude and location were set.

Magnitude updated 24-Jun-2019
Reference:
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Global CMT Project, New York, USA
URL: http://www.globalcmt.org/

Sources NCEI cites

The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.

#365 Romanowicz, Barbara, and Goran Ekstrom (1989). Macquarie earthquake of May 23, 1989, earthquake update, EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, July 11, p. 700.
#1232 International Seismological Centre (1964-1990). Regional Catalogue of Earthquakes, 1964-1990, Edinburgh, Scotland.
#1053 National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) (1971 to 2013). Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (PDE), a weekly and monthly publication, National Earthquake Information Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Golden, Colorado, 1971 to 2013.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

September 6, 1943, Macquarie Island, AustraliaM7.9 · 129 km

Significant earthquakes of 1989 The 1900s Every quake the USGS located in 1989 Recent earthquakes near here This day in weather history

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 5198. The written accounts and the magnitude estimates are from the USGS earthquake catalog, event official19890523105446320_10, matched to this record by time, place and magnitude.