Category Archives: earthquakes

How the UK’s tectonic past is key to its seismic present

Today I learnt something very interesting that I didn’t know before – that intraplate earthquakes in the UK mostly occur in western England and Scotland, not Ireland, eastern Scotland or southeast England (where I grew up). The cause of this … Continue reading

Categories: deep time, earthquakes, geohazards, tectonics

Earth’s inner core has an inner core?

We all know that the Earth’s mostly iron core is divided into a molten outer core and solid inner core. But that may not be the whole story: some just-published seismic data suggests that the Earth’s inner core is divided … Continue reading

Categories: earthquakes, geophysics

A deep origin for the Tohoku earthquake?

So if I’m reading this summary in Eos right, there is a new study suggesting that there was significant deformation of the subducted plate in the lead up to the M9 2011 Tohoku earthquake occurred – enough mass was redistributed to measurably … Continue reading

Categories: earthquakes, geohazards, geophysics, tectonics

The long-term seismic impact of mega thrust earthquakes

Here’s a very interesting analysis of aftershock patterns in the wake of M9+ megathrust events: the aftershocks in a ‘core’ region closest to the rupture shut off within a few years of the main shock, after which seismicity might remain … Continue reading

Categories: earthquakes, geohazards, geology

Why do we get earthquakes a long way from plate boundaries?

There’s already a lot of good info out there about this week’s magnitude 5.9 earthquake near Melbourne, Australia. I wanted to dig a little more into the broader reasons you can get earthquakes like this in places you might not … Continue reading

Categories: earthquakes, geohazards, geology, tectonics