The Mozambique quakes

Please, take a look to the location of the following quakes taken place in Mozambique yesterday (4.8, 4.6 & 4.2):

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I have not checked previous quakes but don´t you feel as if they were following a pattern or a line?

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According to the previous map showing the seismic hazard of Africa, Mozambique does not appear as a very active area.

But Mozambique has no volcanoes. Or has it?

On the East of the African Fault System there are 6.000 km. of a volcanic chain. I have read that the crust of the Earth has cracked in some areas leaving space for the magma to flow underneath and that from the Red Sea until Mozambique (on the south), there are docens of new volcanoes...

I am just trying to get to the reason of the seismicity increase, cause it should mean something.
Any idea?

(Thank you beforehand for your answers)

There has been alot of quakes in Mozambique during the past month I think the first one was about Mag 6-7 and I think all these now are aftershocks.

I had never heard of Earthquakes in that country before and as for Volcanos I have never heard of any.

I'll take a look on Google Earth.

There are no Volcanoes shown in Mozambique nor any previous earthquakes.

Something strange is happening there.



[edit on 20/3/06 by Jamesmichael]

Recent 'quakes are probably just normal aftershocks.

Original news-story from the BBC here

Quakes can occur just about anywhere - not just around volcanos and currently active fault-lines.

In the UK we still get the odd quake around 3 or 4 on the Richter scale originating from faultlines that were last 'active' back in the days when we were still joined to New England and Nova Scotia......


I wonder whether the quake might have been caused by recent fault activity further north around the Horn of Africa?

Originally posted by Essan
I wonder whether the quake might have been caused by recent fault
activity further north around the Horn of Africa?

¿Are you talking about events taken place on the Afar Triangle?

What is worrying is that seismic activity has increased, without volcanoes. This can mean a "re-awakening" of a fault line?...
Plates are really very active everywhere nowadays.

[edit on 21-3-2006 by Ptolomeo]