Last week’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake near New Zealand moved the country some 30 cm towards Australia, it was reported today

“The country is deforming all the time because of being on the plate boundary, but this has done it in a few seconds, rather than waiting hundreds of years,” says Ken Gledhill of government-owned research organisation GNS Science (The Press). “Basically, it’s taken us closer to Australia.”

However, while the southwest side of the country’s South Island moved 30 cm closer to Australia, its east coast moved just 1 cm in the same direction.

“New Zealand just got a little bit bigger is another way to think about it,” Ken Gledhill of government-owned research organisation GNS Science told AFP.

Will this herald increasing affection between the Kiwis and the Aussies? “The transtasman bond has become a wee bit tighter,” thinks Newstalk ZB. However, despite the hopes of some, cheaper air fares between the two countries are unlikely to be forthcoming.

The quake caused only minor damage, but it did allow a Russian tsunami modeller to do some impressive real time forecasting (see Nature’s news story on this from last week).

Image: New Zealand / Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC