Scientists are on a mission to find out more about a barely-researched seismic zone that runs through Auckland and Waikato.

A team led by Dr Jennifer Eccles from Auckland University has been given Earthquake Commission grants to look at the faults in the Hauraki Rift.

It stretches through the Hauraki Gulf, Firth of Thames and Hauraki Plains.

Dr Eccles says it's not as active as areas in Canterbury and the upper South Island, where the recent large earthquakes were centred.

However she says her team has "information that indicates it could produce up to about a magnitude-7 earthquake".

"There are active faults potentially just off the coast of Waiheke Island out there in the gulf and at some point and we don't know when - it could be 10 years or 1000 years time - some of the faults may rupture."

She said there is still much to be learnt about the zone.

"We haven't done a lot of detailed work recently with new technologies to look at it."