Australia's strongest ever recorded earthquake was felt across almost the entirety of the country. It caused portions of the ground to shift by as much as 3.5 meters or 11.5 feet, and bent thick steel pipes like they were plastic. This is the story of the 1988 Tennant Creek earthquake sequence, which although damaging, was thankfully mostly confined to a remote portion of Australia's Northern Territory. Aftershocks from these three magnitude 6 range earthquakes are still occurring in 2025. Thumbnail Photo Credit: Google Earth, Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, Image Landsat / Copernicus. This image was overlaid with text, and then overlaid with GeologyHub made graphics (the image border & the GeologyHub logo). A special thanks to the EarthquakeSim YouTube channel for granting me permission to use clips of his footage! Video Sources from the EarthquakeSim YouTube channel: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy_4G7ig5Gw [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLCEDINUFao Subscribe to EarthquakeSim at: https://www.youtube.com/@EarthquakeSim If you would like to support this channel, consider using one of the following links: (Patreon: http://patreon.com/geologyhub) (YouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYeGh5VML5XPr5jYnzh3J6g/join) (Gemstone & Mineral Etsy store: http://prospectingarizona.etsy.com) (GeologyHub Merch Etsy store: http://geologyhub.etsy.com) Google Earth imagery used in this video: ©Google & Data Providers This video is protected under "fair use". If you see an image and/or video which is your own in this video, and/or think my discussion of a scientific paper (and/or discussion/mentioning of the data/information within a scientific paper) does not fall under the fair use doctrine, and wish for it to be censored or removed, contact me by email at [email protected] and I will make the necessary changes. Various licenses used in sections of this video (not the entire video, this video as a whole does not completely fall under one of these licenses) and/or in this video's thumbnail image (and this list does not include every license used in this video and/or thumbnail image): Public Domain: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode Sources/Citations: [1] Gary Gibson (SRC), (ANU seismologist) Roger Bowman, courtesy Kevin McCue, Australian Earthquake Engineering Society, https://earthquakes.ga.gov.au/ [2] All earthquake location, magnitude, and timing (of earthquakes) data utilized in today's video sourced from data by © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2025, CC BY 4.0. https://earthquakes.ga.gov.au/ [3] U.S. Geological Survey [4] Anthony J. Crone, Michael N. Machette, J. Roger Bowma, “Geologic Investigations of the 1988 Tennant Creek, Australia, Earthquakes Implications for Paleoseismicity in Stable Continental Regions”, Paleoseismological Studies in Australia, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 2032-A, United States Government Printing Office, Washington : 1992. 0:00 M6.6, M6.2, & M6.3 Quakes 1:49 Earthquake Damage 3:00 Geologic Setting 3:30 Aftershocks 3:56 Nearby Fault Lines