australia isnt near te edge of any techtonic plates, so why are there occasionaly earthquakes?

Question

i guess it could be large scale plate movement, how would we tell if it wasnt?

Answer 1

Sometimes movement can occur deep underground between different rock types, basin units, planes of weakness and other such unconformaties. Many rocks is Aust show fault lines running through them, and one could speculate that each fracture zone was accompanied by an earthquake to some degree. Aust is a very old Continent and most of the structural geology happened many millions of years ago. Tennant Creek is another place in Aust that gets earthquakes from time to time.

Answer 2

what you are saying is partly true. The strongest earthquakes occur at plate boundaries and you are more likely to encounter an earthquake at plate boundaries however it is still possible to have an earthquake in the middle of a plate.

Ground movement can still cause earthquakes however they are very uncommon and rarely strong enough to do damage. The Newcastle earthquake was a very rare but deadly example of this.