Minor Earthquake in Midlothian Scotland

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com...

I was browsing through here hisz.rsoe.hu... and noticed it and thought "Scotland!?". Then, I notice a couple more in Germany and Switzerland. Earthquakes seem to have calmed down in the usual places and are popping up in odd areas.

Makes me wonder .... suppose the rock at those depths has a magnetic orientation, and now that the Earth's magnetic field is shifting, would the change have some effect on the temperature and tensile strength of that rock?

I am wondering if there has been any fracking done near by on land or under the Forth. Was only last week I read an article about the coal/coal gas layer under the Forth that is going to be extracted.

a reply to: stormcell

It's the land of Scotland's reaction to the stepping down of Alex Salmond , truly an earth moving occasion.

Could it be down to fracking?

Much historical mining in that area? but small earthquakes are actually more common in the UK than people think but most just rattle the sideboard and knock over the odd glass as while the UK's not in a fault zone a few thousand years of mining does means theres a hell of a lot of holes under the ground.

Yeah, m2.2 is quite common for the UK.

There are literally hundreds of old fault lines running all over the country, and occasionally they do slip.

I imagine when fracking becomes the norm, we can expect to feel more of them, and in larger magnitude, doesn't help with all the mine shafts all over the place that are prone to collapsing.

North of England can sometimes see m3+ even m4+, there was one not so long back not far from me, centred under one of the lakes.

It's surprising we don't feel them more often given how many lines there is......I was surprised how many of the fells here in Cumbria are actually extinct volcanoes, including Scafell Pike just 18 miles from me....it's a super volcano! Yellowstone park style! Thank goodness it snuffed it a long time ago.

I wonder if all the activity in Iceland could be helping? I think Bardarbunga volcano has had roughly around 65 magnitude 5+ eq's since august 16th now and well over 10,000 eq's less than mag 5.

Yep, lots of fault lines in Scotland. Two quite major ones. (By UK standards.) I live in Comrie, right on top of the Highland Fault Boundary, where we even have a semi historically famous earthquake house that measures them.


So its not uncommon.