Port Hedland has been rocked by a series of earthquakes over the past three days, with eight quakes recorded by Geoscience Australia around the town between Saturday and Monday, including several reported as felt by residents.

The strongest was a magnitude 2.5 earthquake recorded by Geoscience Australia near Port Hedland at 9.48am on Monday, September 21, at a depth of 10 kilometres.

A magnitude 1.4 earthquake was also recorded near Port Hedland about an hour earlier and was reported as felt.

A magnitude 2.2 earthquake was recorded on Sunday, September 20, at 7.32 am, with 59 people reporting the tremor to Geoscience Australia.

The earthquake was initially calculated at magnitude 2.5 before being recalculated to 2.2, and occurred south of South Hedland.

The tremor was recorded by eight monitoring stations such as the Pilbara Seismic Array, Eighty Mile Beach and Bulloo Downs.

Residents of the region also felt a magnitude 1.9 earthquake just after midnight on Saturday, September 19, with nine people reporting the tremor.

It was originally calculated at a magnitude 2.0 before it was updated to its current magnitude, and was recorded at several stations including St Luke’s College, Giralia and Eighty Mile Beach.

The pair of earthquakes over the weekend follows the minor magnitude earthquake been recorded in the Pilbara, on Friday, September 18, with 12 people reporting the tremor, according to Geoscience Australia.

The magnitude 1.6 earthquake occurred near Indee, approximately 75km south of Port Hedland, at 6.19 am on Friday, September 18.

The earthquake was initially calculated at magnitude 1.8 before being recalculated to 1.6, with Geoscience Australia recording no reported damage from the tremor.

The tremors were recorded by several people and many monitoring stations, including the Pilbara Seismic Array, a station in Meekatharra and a station in Giralia.

Geoscience Australia Senior seismologist Jonathan Griffin said similar activity had occurred previously in the area.

A sequence around Port Hedland in June and July 2024 saw 12 earthquakes recorded over several weeks, including a magnitude 3.5 event.

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve recorded 39 earthquakes within 100 kilometres of Port Hedland,” Dr Griffin said.

“So it’s not unusual for this part of Australia to experience earthquakes.”

Some of the recent earthquakes have also had their magnitudes revised after initially being reported at higher levels.

Dr Griffin said Geoscience Australia’s 24-hour operations centre produces preliminary solutions before the events are reviewed as more data becomes available.

“It isn’t unusual for the solutions to change over time,” he said.

Dr Griffin said mining can influence local stresses and potentially trigger earthquakes in some circumstances, but the available data made it difficult to attribute these particular earthquakes to any specific cause.

He said uncertainty around the precise locations was also a factor, as the Port Hedland region is not as extensively monitored as some other parts of Australia.

The main mines around Port Hedland are also further inland than where the earthquakes are occurring.

“The driving force of earthquakes is these large-scale tectonic processes,” Dr Griffin said.

Dr Griffin said further earthquakes were possible, but there was no way to predict them.

“Once you’ve had one earthquake or several earthquakes, you are more likely to get aftershocks or other earthquakes occurring,” he said.

According to Geoscience seismologist Michelle Salmon, the Pilbara typically records more earthquakes than other parts of Australia due to its proximity to the plate boundary to the north of WA.

Residents are encouraged to continue submitting felt reports to Geoscience Australia.

“All those felt reports really help us build an understanding of what we’re actually seeing,” Dr Griffin said.

Anyone indoors who feels an earthquake should drop, cover and hold until the shaking stops, before looking for a safe exit.