A Very British Earthquake
On 27th February, much of the British Isles experienced a fairly sizeable earthquake. Centred near Market Raisen, it was the strongest earthquake to hit Britain in more than two decades. Luckily there was little destruction, but Some homes had minor damage, and one man was injured by a collapsing chimney. Many others were left shaken by the experience. We tend to teach that earthquakes and volcanoes occur only at plate boundaries, and therefore the British Isles, in the middle of a plate should escape such events. However, nowhere on earth is competely safe. In fact, Britain is hit annually with about 200 quakes but only 10 percent are strong enough to be felt. A quake of magnitude 5 is capable of causing considerable damage—particularly in places like Britain, which is unaccustomed to earthquakes. The UK, like the rest of Europe, is an interplate region. It is not on any tectonic fault lines, like the San Andreas fault, which lie between different tectonic plates. So we don’t get big earthquakes registering seven or eight on the Richter scale. “The reason we still get earthquakes is that the UK is criss-crossed with geological faults. In Scotland, for instance, most major tremors have been felt along the country’s three major fault lines: the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Loch Lomond to Stonehaven; the Great Glen Fault, which runs from Fort William to Inverness and beyond; and the Southern Upland Fault, which reaches from South Ayrshire to the East Lothian Coast.
See here for details on earthquakes
BBC links about the earthquake here.
