Reviewing the 1 March 1954 Adelaide Earthquake, South Australia

<div>The 1 March 1954 earthquake in South Australia is the most damaging earthquake to impact the densely populated Adelaide region since European settlement. Previous interpretations have associated the event with the Eden-Burnside Fault zone, with a presumed epicentre near Darlington. Surprisingly, comparing macroseismic intensities from the 1954 earthquake with similar modern observational datasets suggests the 1954 event was perhaps larger than previously thought. We assess the validity of this observation by reviewing available macroseismic and instrumental data. We observe damaging shaking extending east from Adelaide into the Adelaide Hills, but without a well-defined locus of higher intensities. The limited teleseismic observations lead us to further speculate that the 1954 earthquake could have been deeper and/or associated with a higher-than-normal stress drop. These new findings question the conventionally assumed location for the 1954 earthquake. Our work highlights the potential seismic hazards faced by large urban centres in Australia such as Adelaide.</div> This paper was presented to the 2022 Australian Earthquake Engineering Society (AEES) Conference 24-25 November (https://aees.org.au/aees-conference-2022/)