NEWS & EVENTS
Tonga Earthquake
Latest News - 2006-05-03
On Wednesday, May 3rd 2006 at 15:26 UTC, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake occurred off the coast of the Pacific Island nation of Tonga. The epicenter was located at 20.035°S, 174.227°W at a depth of 16 km (9.94 miles).
Download
Download movie (61MB) of the Tonga Earthquake fly-by.
Download interactive visual objects of this event.
(Windows: right-click and choose 'save as'; Mac: ctrl-click and choose 'save-as')
Tonga Earthquake with Global Bathymetry:
Uncompressed: (332 MB) Compressed: (260 MB)
Tonga Earthquake with Subduction Zone
Uncompressed: (110 MB)
Compressed: (68 MB)
Note: To view these scene files you will need to install iView3D, the free viewer from IVS.
Click Image to Enlarge
Figure 1: This image shows the topography and the bathymetry of the Earth.
The location of the magnitude 8 earthquake is marked in red, the yellow spheres represent
locations of previous earthquakes.
Figure 2: A closer view of the Tonga region, the earthquake location and seismicity in the surrounding region.
Figure 3: A view of the seismicity around Tonga below the ocean floor.
You can see how the earthquakes in this region line up along the subduction zone.