Burakin, 2000-2001

Burakin is a tiny farming settlement in the northern wheatbelt area of SW Western Australia, about 200 km NE of Perth. An earthquake swarm commenced in the Burakin area on 16 September 2000. This activity died away over a couple of weeks, and the largest event was magnitude 3.6. However in September 2001, a new and larger swarm commenced in an area about 15 km to the north-north west of the year 2000 swarm. In the 6 months from Sept 2002, there were four earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or more, and approximately 18000 smaller events.. Some residents in the region felt thousands of these earthquakes. Many buildings within 25 km of the activity suffered minor damage, but none has major structural damage. Most of the earthquakes are believed to be less than 2 km deep.

The activity at Burakin has been described by Geoscience Australia as the most significant seismic Activity in Australia for the last 40 years.

The seismic activity at Burakin is close to, but probably not related to, the major (mag 6.1) earthquake at Cadoux in 1979. The Cadoux earthquake had many aftershocks, continuing into the year 2000 and beyond.

BELOW - Earthquakes in the Cadoux - Burakin area.

Green - 1995 - 1997   Blue 1997 - 2000    Red 2001 - March 2004

Note - the NE trending lineation observed above may be in part due to the poor azimuthal distribution of the recording stations used to locate the earthquakes.

TABLE OF LARGEST BURAKIN EVENTS

Below - map from AUSGEO NEWS, June 2003

Below - map showing location of Burakin event, March 2003

Below - seismogram from Bickley Observatory for ML 5.1 event on 28 Sept 2001

Seismogram from Bickley Observatory, 25 Dec 2001, showing Burakin events