ANOTHER small earthquake has shaken the Queensland coast near Fraser Island, in the same area larger earthquakes hit in July and August.

Geoscience Australia seismologist Eddie Leask said southeast Queensland was experiencing something of a “boom season” for earthquakes so far this year.

“We’ve had a period where we’ve had more earthquakes in southeast Queensland this year than we have had in the past, but it’s hard to say whether that’s expected or unexpected because we don’t have enough seismic history” he said.

“We’ve only got 150 years of history in the area, and when you go back that far you’re only talking about the very big ones that were recorded in the newspaper.

“We just don’t have enough knowledge of what’s going on in Queensland, and in all of Australia for that matter.”

Today’s tremor occurred shortly after 9.30am, 120km off the coast, and registered 3.3 on the Richter scale.

“It’s been an area with higher activity for a little while now, and this was one of the smaller ones we’ve detected,” Mr Leask said.

“We’ve had four magnitude-five earthquakes in Queensland this year, and every earthquake we get teaches us something more about what’s going on.”

Mr Leask said while there was the chance for aftershocks from today’s earthquake, there was no immediate threat to the general public.

Earlier this morning, a 8.3-magnitude quake struck off the north coast of Chile, killing five people and causing one million to be evacuated from their homes as building swayed and collapsed in some areas.

It has been Chile’s largest earthquake since 2010, and the country is now bracing for tsunamis as flooding has been reported up and down the country’s coast.

Mr Leask said the earthquake off Queensland was unrelated to the Chilean disaster.