Mw 6.1 Vanuatu

On 17 April 2022 a strong earthquake occurred at Vanuatu at a depth of 206 km. The seismic event occurred at 07:46:36 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 6.1. It was the third strong earthquake since 4 April, all of which occurred at Vanuatu.

Later on the 14th a Mercury-Sun-Venus conjunction occurred, which often results in stronger seismic activity into the low 6 magnitude range. The conjunction converged with critical lunar geometry.

Mercury-Sun-Venus         2022-04-14, 19:11:48  262°46'21"
Earth-Mercury-Uranus      2022-04-18,  4:46:55   43°30'53"

Moon-Earth-Neptune        2022-04-14,  9:30:51  353°44'20"
Moon-Earth-Jupiter        2022-04-14, 10:08:15  354°05'18"
Moon-Earth-Sun            2022-04-16, 18:13:25   26°26'01"
					

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