Earthquake Royal Commission - GNS technical report

From the Royal Commission's website:

The Commission has published a report from Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS) and requested evidence or submissions relating to this report and/or the issue of seismicity:

1a. New Zealand's geological setting
1b. Seismological model for New Zealand, and in particular for Canterbury
1c. The nature and severity of the Canterbury earthquakes

Submissions and evidence should be provided in electronic form by Friday 30 September 2011.

The report can be found here.

The report is broken into four parts.

Part 1  Contents, Executive Summary, Introduction, Background (here) has a very useful background to New Zealand, Canterbury and earthquakes, along with an executive summary of Parts 2-4.

Part 2 The Canterbury Earthquakes (here) provides a detailed scientific account of what happened on the 4th of September, 26th of December, 22nd of February, and the 13th of June.

Part 3 Implications for Christchurch (here), is one of the better scientific descriptions of what seismic activity is possible over the next twenty years (including the Alpine Fault). It is difficult reading in parts but some of the highly technical stuff can be skipped over without losing the core message. 

Part 4 National Implications, Conclusions, Acknowledgements, References, Appendices 1-5 (here). The appendices include descriptions and explanations of the types of faults that can occur, the tectonic structure of Canterbury including the major fault systems, and previous major earthquakes in New Zealand's history.

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