A moderate earthquake struck western Sulawesi, Indonesia, on 15 January 2021 at approximately 2:28am (SGT). According to the United States Geological Survey, the Mw 6.2 event occurred about 36 kilometres (km) south of Mamuju on the island of Sulawesi at a depth of 18 km.
This event follows a smaller Mw 5.7 foreshock event that occurred approximately 12 hours earlier at about the same location.
Today’s event is due to compressional forces on a fault system that has left a visible record in the topography and geology. However, not many earthquakes have happened on this fault system in the recent past. “The east-dipping thrust fault here is part of an obscure system of faults that extends offshore and is not well studied,” said Dr Kyle Bradley, a Principal...