A 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck land on Papua New Guinea on September 5.
The quake was around the middle of the island, but fairly far from nearby cities--it was 65 miles south of Ialibu and 77 miles south/southeast of Mendi.
The earthquake happened around the Australia-Pacific plate boundary, reported the U.S. Geological Service.
“The Australia-Pacific plate boundary is over 4000 km long on the northern margin, from the Sunda (Java) trench in the west to the Solomon Islands in the east,” it says. “The eastern section is over 2300 km long, extending west from northeast of the Australian continent and the Coral Sea until it intersects the east coast of Papua New Guinea. The boundary is dominated by the general northward subduction of the Australia plate.”
Papau New Guinea is an island a northwest of Australia that is divided between New Guinea and Indonesia.
