Qualla: 1993 Finisterre Earthquakes https://qualla.com/1993-finisterre-earthquakes en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:28 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/z/y/1993-finisterre-earthquakes-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: 1993 Finisterre Earthquakes https://qualla.com/1993-finisterre-earthquakes 1993 Finisterre Earthquakes: Introduction https://qualla.com/1993-finisterre-earthquakes/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 13 October 1993, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake ruptured beneath the Finisterre Range. It was followed by a 6.5 and then a 6.7. The mountainside began to move. In the weeks and months after the shaking stopped, satellites mapped 680 new landslides across the range; a more careful analysis in 2008 would eventually identify more than 4,700. Some of the largest debris avalanches generated windblasts strong enough to strip leaves from trees several kilometers from the slide itself. Rivers were dammed, lakes formed, and the lakes broke. Papua New Guinea is one of the most seismically busy places on Earth, and this was one of the ways the earth reminded the people living on it of that fact.

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/z/y/1993-finisterre-earthquakes-wp/rnzy-1993-finisterre-earthquakes-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full 1993 Finisterre Earthquakes: A Country of Converging Plates https://qualla.com/1993-finisterre-earthquakes/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Papua New Guinea sits where four tectonic plates grind against each other - the Pacific, the Australian, the Caroline, and a series of smaller microplates whose motion complicates every earthquake catalog written about the region. At the Huon Peninsula, the Woodlark plate is movi...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/z/y/1993-finisterre-earthquakes-wp/rnzy-1993-finisterre-earthquakes-a-country-of-converging-plates.mp3 0:06 2 full 1993 Finisterre Earthquakes: The Fault That Surprised Geologists https://qualla.com/1993-finisterre-earthquakes/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. For years, seismologists assumed the culprit under this part of the coast was the Ramu-Markham Fault - the shallow thrust that marks the visible boundary between the Finisterre Range and the Markham Valley floor. The 1993 earthquakes forced a revision. The rupture geometry did no...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/z/y/1993-finisterre-earthquakes-wp/rnzy-1993-finisterre-earthquakes-the-fault-that-surprised-geologists.mp3 0:06 3 full 1993 Finisterre Earthquakes: The Villages That Moved https://qualla.com/1993-finisterre-earthquakes/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. At least 58 villages were damaged badly enough that roughly 8,000 people had to be evacuated. Homes and schools built of wood fared surprisingly well - timber frames flex, and flexibility is a gift during shaking - but the gardens that feed highland villages were destroyed by the...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/z/y/1993-finisterre-earthquakes-wp/rnzy-1993-finisterre-earthquakes-the-villages-that-moved.mp3 0:06 4 full 1993 Finisterre Earthquakes: The Lakes That Broke https://qualla.com/1993-finisterre-earthquakes/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Landslides did more than bury houses. When hillsides collapsed into valleys, they dammed the rivers running south from the range. Quake lakes formed behind the debris piles - temporary reservoirs filling with the monsoon rains that follow a highland October. Some held. Others bre...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/z/y/1993-finisterre-earthquakes-wp/rnzy-1993-finisterre-earthquakes-the-lakes-that-broke.mp3 0:06 5 full 1993 Finisterre Earthquakes: Living in a Seismic Country https://qualla.com/1993-finisterre-earthquakes/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Papua New Guinea's seismicity is not a hazard to be solved. It is a condition of the place - a permanent feature of the geology, like rainfall or altitude. The Finisterre villages that rebuilt in 1993 did not move to a safer country because no such country was within reach, and b...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/z/y/1993-finisterre-earthquakes-wp/rnzy-1993-finisterre-earthquakes-living-in-a-seismic-country.mp3 0:06 6 full