Paleoseismic Evidence for 3-5 Earthquakes on the Southern Willunga Fault, South Australia

South Australia's Willunga Fault, ~40 km south of Adelaide, is the subject of a paleoseismic investigation. 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 m. This abstract was presented at the Australian & NZ Geomorphology Group Conference in September 2022.

Use Cases

• Modeling seismic hazard for proximal communities based on estimated earthquake recurrence and displacement.
• Correlating recent fault activity with long-term landscape evolution based on evidence of tectonic uplift.
• Refining spatiotemporal uplift distribution models for the Mt Lofty Ranges based on trench excavation findings.

Strengths

• Provides specific displacement estimates of 0.5–1.7 meters per earthquake event.
• Documents evidence for a quantified range of 3-5 ground-rupturing earthquakes.
• Focuses on a specific fault segment ~40 km south of Adelaide, providing localized data.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Paleoseismic investigation via trench excavation across the fault.

Time Range

Middle to Late Pleistocene to present.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 05:41:04.981147; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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