(CNN) New Zealand's North and South Islands are moving closer together after a series of earthquakes in 2016 that lifted the sea floor, the country's geology body has said. 
 
 The 7.8-magnitude quake and its aftershocks lifted the seabed six-and-a-half feet when they hit near Kaikōura on the South Island, exposing seaweed-covered rocks and marine life. 
 
 And the islands have continued to creep closer to each other since the quake, Sigrún Hreinsdóttir of the GNS Science body told New Zealand news website Stuff 
 
 Cape Campbell, on the northeastern tip of the South Island, is almost 14 inches closer to Wellington, a major city on the southern coast of the North Island, than it was before the quake, she said. 
 
 Meanwhile, Kaikōura has moved about six inches east, and the coastal town of Blenheim has shifted northeast by the same distance. 

 Fault lines are still settling two years after the Kaikoura earthquake opened up a record 25 faults 
 
 New Zealand's North and South islands 'creeping' even closer together after quake 
 
 New Zealand’s North and South islands are “creeping” closer together in the wake of the devastating Kaikoura earthquake two years ago, the national science body has revealed. 
 
 The magnitude 7.8 quake struck the upper South Island in 2016, and initially brought the two landmasses five metres closer together but GNS Science has now found that unsettled fault lines continue to draw them ever nearer. 
 
 GNS Science geodetic scientist Dr Sigrún Hreinsdóttir told Stuff that Cape Campbell at the top of the South Island was now about 35cm closer to Wellington since the quake. 
 
 Hreinsdóttir​ said it was difficult to identify which fault was responsible for the post-quake creep. “In reality we are having all this creeping going on and the question is, which [fault] is the dominant factor?” 
 
 Surviving in Waiau: the forgotten town closest to the NZ quake epicentre Read more 
 
 Hreinsdóttir’s team said the South Island’s creep towards the North would continue for years yet, but that the rate of movement will slow. 
 
 After the quake, researchers identified that the quake had also raised some areas of land by eight metres. They described the quake as “complicated” and said it drove a thorough rethink on earthquake science after a world-record 25 faults opened up. 
 
 Numerous studies by local and international scientists of the Kaikoura quake are being carried out, as the data collected at the time is some of the best in the world, utilising satellite images, field observations, GPS and coastal uplift data. 
 
 GNS’s principal scientist, Dr Kevin Berryman, said: “It was certainly unusual that 25 faults ruptured simultaneously in the Kaikōura earthquake. 
 
 “It’s fair to say that all earthquakes of magnitude 7.5 and above are invariably very complex … We have to be prepared to live with a level of risk, but we should be asking how much risk is acceptable?” 
 
 “It’s a challenge for us [New Zealand] to provide expected levels of services when confronted by such high levels of geological hazard.” 

 Cape Campbell after uplift during the Kaikōura earthquake in November 2016. 
 
 The top of the South Island is creeping closer to the North Island as the land continues settling after the November 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. 
 
 The massive forces released by the magnitude 7.8 quake on November 14, 2016, had immediate effects on the North Canterbury and Marlborough landscape. 
 
 But the changes unleashed have not finished yet, with post-quake monitoring showing Cook Strait is getting narrower as the northern part of the South Island edges northeast. 
 
 KAT PICKFORD Cape Campbell, looking across Cook Strait to Wellington. 
 
 The difference in the South Island's shape could be seen if a large enough map of central New Zealand as it is today could be laid over one on November 13 two years ago. 
 
 READ MORE: 
 
 * 'Startling' rise of 5.5 metres in piece of coastline during Kaikoura earthquake 
 
 * Kaikōura's alien landscapes: Once lively seabeds now a wasteland 
 
 * Our Australian cousins just got closer 
 
 The Kaikōura quake tore apart 25 faults as it raced northwards from its epicentre close to Waiau, North Canterbury, through to the shores of Cook Strait. 
 
 SUPPLIED New land exposed after the November 2016 earthquake near Cape Campbell. 
 
 Over about a minute-and-a-half, parts of the Marlborough coast were lifted more than 6 metres in places and dropped more than 2m in others. Land was shunted horizontally by 12m along the Kēkerengū Fault and vertically by as much as 9m along the Papatea Fault. 
 
 Global Positioning System (GPS) monitoring stations installed by GNS Science and the University of Otago across the quake zone in the days after the main shock show the fastest movement in the past two years since then has been at Cape Campbell. 
 
 GNS Science geodetic scientist Dr Sigrún Hreinsdóttir​, who has been analysing the creep towards the North Island, said Cape Campbell had moved northeast and was now about 35 centimetres closer to Wellington than before the quake. 
 
 Other GPS sites showed Kaikōura had slid about 15cm further east, Blenheim was now 15cm further northeast towards Cook Strait, and Nelson had slipped about 5cm southeast. 
 
 Sites in the Marlborough Sounds had moved northeast by about 10cm, but land around the Waiau epicentre had barely moved. 
 
 Wellington had also shifted about 5cm northeast since the quake, she said. 
 
 It was difficult to quantify how much post-quake creep was due to slip on the subduction zone below the region or "after slip" on the Needles, Kēkerengū and Jordan faults, she said. 
 
 "In reality we are having all these creepings going on and the question is, which is the dominant factor? The idea there was a quite significant component on that plate interface was the surprising thing to us." 
 
 ﻿More recent measurements indicated the creep was continuing but at a slower rate, Hreinsdóttir said. 
 
 Hreinsdóttir was the leader of the Natural Hazards Research Platform's report on post-Kaikōura quake deformation. 
 
 The report says the land creep from such a large quake will continue for years, with further slip on crustal faults, "viscoelastic response" of the lower crust and upper mantle and further possible slip on the subduction interface.
– New Zealanders are coming together this holiday season in more ways than one. A magnitude-7.8 earthquake that struck two years ago initially brought the country's North and South Islands about 16 feet closer together, and the land masses have continued to close the gap. Scientists say the distance has shrunk another 14 inches, reports the Guardian. "We are having all this creeping going on," Sigrún Hreinsdóttir of GNS Science tells Stuff, describing how Cape Campbell on South Island and Wellington on North Island are now a bit closer. Wellington has moved about 2 inches northeast; the coastal town of Blenheim, north of Cape Campbell, has moved 6 inches east; and Kaikoura to the south moved 6 inches northeast, per Stuff. Hreinsdóttir expects the movement will continue for years but at a slowing rate. It's unclear which fault line or lines are responsible. A world-record 25 faults opened—one at a speed of roughly two miles per second—during the so-called Kaikoura quake, which GNS Science refers to as "one of the most complex earthquakes ever recorded worldwide." It raised the seabed by 6.5 feet, per CNN. (One resident said it "just kept going and going.")