Why does australia have so few earthquakes?

Question

i know that it's because were on the middle of a tectonic plate and that earthquakes are caused by these plates mooving, but i have to a report on this and i donk know how to add some depth to this

Answer 1

You are right. Australia is not near a tectonic plate boundary and so it does not suffer earthquakes directly from that source. Australia is an "old" continent made up of deep layers of old rocks which date back to Precambrian times. These old rocks form thick slabs of rock called cratons  - eg the Yilgarn craton in Western Australia. These huge areas of cratons act like thick, massive slabs of rock  which are less prone to deformation and failure under crustal stresses. The Earth's crust is much thicker in such areas.

In many areas of Australia upwelling granite magma over time has solidified to "weld" the thick granitic crust togetrher thus further reinforcing it.

Do a google search on "craton" a nd "granite batholiths " to help you fill it out more.