Where to explore the Wellington Fault

The fault runs along the Hutt River.at the foot of the Western Hills

The Wellington Fault is one of several large active faults in the lower North Island of New Zealand. From the Tararua Mountains and Kaitoke it runs the length of the Hutt Valley, the edge of Wellington Harbour, through Tinakori in the City and across the hills to Cook Strait.

View across Lower Hutt to the Wellington Fault scarp

Regional Faults in the Lower North Island

Earthquakes occur on the Wellington Fault approximately every 700 to 1000 years on average, with the last between 170 and 370 years ago. The probability of a rupture in the next 100 years is calculated to be about 10%.  Because it runs along the highly populated Hutt Valley and right through the Capital City via its transport bottleneck, it is regarded as one of the country's highest risk faults.


You can find out information about all of New Zealand's known active faults on the GNS Science Active Faults Database, but in this image you can see a screen grab of those known in the Wellington area, some of them labelled:








As you can see there are many other faults in the region, each of which is capable of rupturing, so that the real possibility of a large earthquake occurring at some point from one or other of the faults is something that should inspire everyone to be prepared.  (Make some time to go to https://getready.govt.nz/ )

Here is an aerial view of the Wellington Fault trace passing through California Park in Upper Hutt and along California Drive beyond - centre top to bottom right of the photo. The fault is an oblique slip fault, with mostly horizontal movement but some vertical displacement as well when it ruptures.

The entrance to Wellington City at Thorndon is a bottleneck, where the Wellington Fault passes underneath the railway, State Highway and Ferry Terminal, as well as the water supply. This makes Wellington vulnerable to being cut off by a rupture of the Wellington Fault.






This video gives you more information and shows you various locations that you can visit to learn about the Wellington Fault and some of its features: