The largest strike-slip earthquake ever recorded — a rare giant that broke the middle of an oceanic plate rather than its edge, as the Indian and Australian plates slowly tear apart.
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DownloadThe 2012 Wharton Basin earthquake struck on April 11, 2012, registering magnitude 8.6 (moment magnitude, Mw). Each whole step on the moment-magnitude scale is roughly 32 times more energy, so this released on the order of 7,943× the energy of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake.
Its epicenter was located near 2.33°N, 93.06°E, at a depth of about 20 km — a shallow crustal earthquake. Shallow earthquakes like this release their energy close to the surface, which is why the shaking near the epicenter was so violent.
An estimated 10 people were killed.