Ground shaking potential relating to eastern Australian active faults: an example from the Bendigo Region with relevance to water reservoirs and tailings dams

Created 16/10/2025

Updated 16/10/2025

We present earthquake ground motions based upon a paleoseismically-validated characteristic earthquake scenario for the ~ 48 km-long Avonmore scarp, which overlies the Meadow Valley Fault, east of Bendigo, Victoria. The results from the moment magnitude MW 7.1 scenario earthquake indicate that ground motions are sufficient to be of concern to nearby mining and water infrastructure. Specifically, the estimated median peak ground acceleration (PGA) exceeds 0.5 g to more than ~ 10 km from the source fault, and a 0.09 g PGA liquefaction threshold is exceeded out to approximately 50-70 kilometres. Liquefaction of susceptible materials, such as mine tailings, may occur to much greater distances. Our study underscores the importance of identifying and characterising potentially active faults in proximity to high failure-consequence dams, including mine tailings dams, particularly in light of the requirement to manage tailing dams for a prolonged period after mine closure. Paper presented at Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD) conference 2020, online. (https://leishman.eventsair.com/ancold-2020-online/)

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Title Ground shaking potential relating to eastern Australian active faults: an example from the Bendigo Region with relevance to water reservoirs and tailings dams
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/45a8b061-af31-4313-ad84-12c1e957984d
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 08/04/2019
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        112.0,
        -44.0
      ],
      [
        154.0,
        -44.0
      ],
      [
        154.0,
        -9.0
      ],
      [
        112.0,
        -9.0
      ],
      [
        112.0,
        -44.0
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

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This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Ground shaking potential relating to eastern Australian active faults: an example from the Bendigo Region with relevance to water reservoirs and tailings dams". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/ground-shaking-potential-relating-to-eastern-australian-active-faults-an-example-from-the-bendi