A team of scientists is heading to New Zealand's largest fault this weekend to try and work out what kind of earthquakes we could expect in future.
They'll be sailing out to the Hikurangi subduction zone off the coast of Gisborne.
The work will help New Zealand prepare for what is being dubbed the next great quake:
Japan was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Scientists are trying to find out if something similar could happen here.
A group of unassuming spheres could answer that very question.
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NIWA's RV Tangaroa is carrying a team of 15 New Zealand, Japanese and American scientists led by GNS Science, to drop off the spheres off.
And once they're in place some are going to be on the seafloor for up to five years collecting data.
They'll be recording earthquakes and the upward, downward and horizontal movement of the sea floor, along the Hikurangi fault.
"A lot of the information and data we're collecting is going to give us a lot of insight into the hazard - the tsunami and earthquake hazard - posed by this plate boundary which will help us to be better prepared in the future," says Dr Laura Wallace, GNS Geophycisist.
The Hikurangi is a subduction zone - where one tectonic plate dives under another. It's the sort of fault that causes the world's most deadly earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis.
"Some of the other instruments that we have will allow us to determine where the plate boundary's locked up and building up pressure for future earthquakes or tsunami and where it may be creeping," says Dr Wallace.
When the fault does rupture scientists think it could cause an up to magnitude nine earthquake and tsunami.
That would leave coastal communities with little time to escape, and affect the whole east coast of the North Island as well as the north of the South.
But it's hoped this research will help us to be more prepared.
Newshub
