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Small earthquakes are not unusual in Australia, said Chris Elders, a structural geology expert at Curtin University, “but what is very unusual is to have such a large earthquake and for it to occur close to a center of population so that it’s very widely felt.”

“Tsunamis from volcanic flank collapse are generated right at the coast and often close to populations,” said Eddie Dempsey, lecturer in structural geology at Britain’s University of Hull.

Bjornerud studies structural geology, or how mountains are formed and how earthquakes happen, she said.

The field camp housed many students who studied sedimentary and structural geology and mapped what they saw, he said.

The people that studied the structural geology side of the story never talked to the palaeontologists and the palaeontologists never thought to talk to them.