Mw 6.5 New Britain Region, P.N.G.

On 9 March 2011 a strong earthquake occurred in the New Britain region at a depth of 29 km. The seismic event occurred at 21:24:50 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 6.5.

Critical planetary geometry occurred from 5 to 9 March with no less than five planetary alignments involving Mercury and Venus. The alignments on the 6th and 7th in particular were critical as they converged with a high lunar peak (index 18). The geometry involved Jupiter and Saturn, which were on opposite sides (grand opposition).

The first seismic increase occurred on the 6th with two strong tremors at Tarapaca, Chile and the South Sandwich Islands Region respectively, peaking Mw 6.6. A day later a Mw 6.4 tremor occurred at the Solomon Islands. Earlier on the 9th a major earthquake near the east coast of Honshu, Japan followed on the Venus-Mars-Uranus alignment two days earlier, which greatly added to the critical geometry involving Mercury. Another strong tremor occurred on the and 10th (not counting aftershocks), after which seismic activity peaked in the morning of the 11th.

Sun-Mercury-Uranus        2011-03-02, 19:27:00    0°11'07"
Mercury-Sun-Saturn        2011-03-05,  8:14:21  192°44'22"
Sun-Mercury-Jupiter       2011-03-05, 11:05:33   13°21'09"
Jupiter-Mercury-Saturn    2011-03-06, 15:58:41  193°00'51"
Venus-Mars-Uranus         2011-03-07,  1:28:56    2°02'53"
Earth-Mercury-Uranus      2011-03-09, 16:00:08  359°42'42"

Earth-Moon-Neptune        2011-03-03, 14:19:11  328°45'48"
Earth-Moon-Mars           2011-03-04,  7:09:25  337°09'23"
Earth-Moon-Sun            2011-03-04, 20:26:30  343°45'23"
Earth-Moon-Mercury        2011-03-05, 12:36:11  351°45'55"
Earth-Moon-Uranus         2011-03-06,  4:16:32  359°30'58"
Earth-Moon-Jupiter        2011-03-06, 23:26:00    8°58'46"
Moon-Earth-Saturn         2011-03-07, 13:03:21  195°42'31"
					

SSGI depiction of planetary (PG) and lunar (LG) geometry


SSGI depiction of total — non-interpreted — geometry