Earthquake on South Island, NZ

An earthquake occurred at 9:22 PM (9:22 AM GMT) on the evening of Wednesday, July 16th in the Fiordland region of southern New Zealand. At this writing , the earthquake's moment magnitude is reported as 7.6 by the USGS but as 7.8 by the New Zealand's Institute of Nuclear and Geological Sciences. Fiordland is near the southern tip of South Island, where the Australian Plate moves to the northeast at a rate of 35-45 mm/yr relative to the Pacific plate. The yellow area in the above "beach ball" pattern shows the predominantly eastward component of the current thrust within the northeastward plate movement.

The tremor lasted at least a minute and was felt as a rolling motion across New Zealand's South Island, according to the BBC. New Zealand issued a tsunami warning for a string of its coastal towns and cities, but later cancelled it. A tsunami was detected in the Tasman Sea, heading towards the southeast coast of Australia. About an hour after a tsunami warning was issued, Australian officials downgraded it to a "small boat alert" and there was little or no evidence for coastal flooding as a result of the quake.

The Rio Tinto debacle

Shares of Australian mining conglomerate Rio Tinto (RTP) sank on July 8th following the news of the arrest of their employee Stern Hu for bribery and espionage by Chinese authorities. Hu is an Australian national of Chinese ancestry. Australian blogger and economist angel80 adeptly chronicles an intricate merger war between Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton (BHP), and Chinalco (ACH) which led up to Hu's arrest. Stock prices for BHP Billiton and Chinalco do not appear to have been affected by the Rio Tinto debacle, at least on the boards in London or New York. The above chart compares RTP against the PHLX index for gold and silver (^XAU) for the past month.