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Tectonic geomorphology and Holocene uplift rates of the Lae Urban Area, Papua New Guinea

Created 16/10/2025

Updated 16/10/2025

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The city of Lae is Papua New Guinea (PNG)’s second largest, and is the home of PNG’s largest port. Here, a convergence rate of ~50 mm/yr between the South Bismarck Plate and the Australian Plate is accommodated across the Ramu-Markham Fault Zone (RMFZ). The active structures of the RMFZ are relatively closely spaced to the west of Lae. However, the fault zone bifurcates immediately west of the Lae urban area, with one strand continuing to the east, and a second strand trending southeast through Lae City and connecting to the Markham Trench within the Huon Gulf.

The geomorphology of the Lae region relates to the interaction between riverine (and limited marine) deposition and erosion, and range-building over low-angle thrust faults of the RMFZ. Flights of river terraces imply repeated tectonic uplift events; dating of these terraces will constrain the timing of past earthquakes and associated recurrence intervals. Terrace riser heights are typically on the order of 3 m, indicating causative earthquake events of greater than magnitude 7.

Future work will expose the most recently active fault traces in trenches to assess single event displacements, and extend the study to the RMFZ north of Nadzab Airport. These results will inform a seismic hazard and risk assessment for Lae city and surrounding region. Presented at the 2023 Australian Earthquake Engineering Society (AEES) Conference

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Title Tectonic geomorphology and Holocene uplift rates of the Lae Urban Area, Papua New Guinea
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/a6dacf79-ba87-4ef3-981a-f981ba619dd8
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 21/03/2024
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Tectonic geomorphology and Holocene uplift rates of the Lae Urban Area, Papua New Guinea". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/tectonic-geomorphology-and-holocene-uplift-rates-of-the-lae-urban-area-papua-new-guinea