Paleoseismic Investigation of the Southern Willunga Fault, South Australia

South Australia's Willunga Fault, ~40 km south of Adelaide, is the focus of a paleoseismic study. The dataset likely contains evidence for 3-5 ground-rupturing earthquakes since the Middle to Late Pleistocene, with single event displacements of 0.5–1.7 meters. This abstract was presented at the Australian & NZ Geomorphology Group Conference in September 2022.

Use Cases

• Modeling seismic hazard for proximal communities based on evidence of 3-5 past earthquakes.
• Analyzing long-term tectonic uplift rates based on the relationship between recent fault activity and uplifted Pliocene basins.
• Estimating fault slip rates and recurrence intervals based on single event displacements of 0.5–1.7 meters.

Strengths

• Focuses on a specific fault system ~40 km south of Adelaide, providing localized seismic hazard data.
• Presents evidence for 3-5 ground-rupturing earthquakes with quantified displacements of 0.5–1.7 meters.
• Links recent fault activity to a longer-term uplift history of over 200 meters within the last 5 million years.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and specific data formats (beyond a referenced PDF) are unknown.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Paleoseismic investigation involving trench excavation across the fault to examine fault planes and sedimentary strata.

Time Range

Middle to Late Pleistocene to present.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-10 17:43:38.532740; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Southern Willunga Fault, Mt Lofty Ranges, South Australia, ~40 km south of Adelaide.