Transcript

PETER CAVE: The New South Wales city of Newcastle was founded on coal, but US research claims that mining may have triggered the 1989 earthquake which caused billions of dollars of damages there.

Thirteen people were killed in the tremor.

An academic at New York's Columbia University says nearly 200 years of mining, and the removal of millions of tonnes of rock, reactivated a major fault beneath Newcastle.

Brendan Trembath reports.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: It was Australia's first recorded fatal earthquake, and Dr Christian Klose says it was probably set off by two centuries of coalmining.

CHRISTIAN KLOSE: Coalmining started 200 years ago in Newcastle. So if you apply these entire production data into the model, then you see that all the stress changed.

And humans are one part to contribute stress into the crust.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Dr Klose works at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York.

He has only been to Newcastle once, last year, but his theory is based on analysing years of mining data.

He used the information to assess the relative strength of the earth in the Newcastle area.

CHRISTIAN KLOSE: In the (inaudible) or the data have shown that most, or the dramatic change of stresses in the crust occurred after the Second World War, and the reason is because production increased, and these are the major facts. Before that time production was not that large and had not changed the stress in the crust that much.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: But Australian researchers like Robert Melchers are sceptical.

A professor of civil engineering at Newcastle University, he wrote a report on the 1989 earthquake for the New South Wales Government. He says the quake was one of many that occur in Australia every year, and not unusual.

ROBERT MELCHERS: Yes I've seen that paper, and it claims that this was the definitive cause. I would simply respond and say it is one of many possible causes.

It is quite - as I've just explained - there are many, many earthquakes in Australia, they're all minor, and it's perfectly feasible that an earthquake like that would've occurred irrespective of whether there'd been mining or not.

That may or may not have been the reason. But the claim that this was the definitive reason I think is a long bow indeed.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: While Dr Klose thinks coal mining triggered the 1989 Newcastle earthquake, he accepts mining is integral to the city's economy.

CHRISTIAN KLOSE: You have two chances to avoid this. Whether you reduce the hazards or you reduce the vulnerability, so whether you mine in a more sustainable way, or you just try to have urban plannings in other areas, away from the mining regions.

PETER CAVE: Dr Christian Klose speaking to Brendan Trembath.