Work using geolocation on the Hauraki Rift which is a North - South trending, 250 km (160 mi) long and 25 km (16 mi) wide on-shore/off-shore continental rift reveals a widening rate of 0.9 mm (0.035 in)/year although some of the raw data suggests that at the Te Poi end it might be up to 1.5 mm (0.059 in)/year.

[4] Recent historic ruptures have involved up to 2 m (6.6 ft) of vertical displacement, which suggests associated contemporary earthquake risk that could be of seismic intensity VII on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale at the nearby major population centres, being Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga and Thames.

[5] Forty percent of New Zealand's population live, and 40% of GDP generation occurs within 50 km (31 mi) of the fault.

The tsunami hazard was calculated to be low in 1999 but has not been revised as a result of the later on shore work showing that some earthquakes were larger than historically assumed.

[1][6] In the past, the Kerepehi Fault has experienced significant earthquakes that might have occurred before the advent of written records.