Watch: New Zealand sea bed lifted over 19 feet during earthquake

Earthquakes are universally known to be powerfully destructive, but it's not every day you can witness them raise a seabed a bunch of feet into the air. 

A Youtube video from GeoNet features an area in New Zealand known as the Papatea fault. That's where earthquakes with magnitudes of up to 7.8 literally lifted the sea bed on the coast of the south island.

In the video, researcher Kevin Berryman inspects the area where the quakes lifted the sea bed almost 6 metres (19.6 feet) into the air, essentially creating a massive wall a little out to sea.

According to locals, Berryman said, the sound of the fault shift was "just horrendous" to locals, saying they "described not the earthquake noise but the noise of water running off the top of the platform here."

Aquatic life now pepper the new shore line, after the huge shift saw an immediate disappearance of habitat as the ocean spilled away. Nature is cool.

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