UK Earthquake - 4.5

[DrP]

Anyone woken by the quake last night? Woke me up... similar to the one a few years back (2008 or earlier?).. didn't last as long but seemed a little more vigorous. (Probably depends upon the individuals location).

 

News shows some minor damage to properties. This is the second I have experienced here... It is obvious why there are so many at fault lines, but I wonder what the mechanism is for a quake in the middle of a tectonic plate. I could look it up later, but thought I'd ask if anyone knew here of the top of their heads.

[StringJunky]

I had a quick read around . There are ancient fault lines under the plates, which slip occasionally. I presume the current continental plates are sitting over the joins of older plates underneath.

 

I'm too far away to feel that one, shame.

Edited May 22, 2015 by StringJunky

[Acme]

Anyone woken by the quake last night? Woke me up... similar to the one a few years back (2008 or earlier?).. didn't last as long but seemed a little more vigorous. (Probably depends upon the individuals location).

 

News shows some minor damage to properties. This is the second I have experienced here... It is obvious why there are so many at fault lines, but I wonder what the mechanism is for a quake in the middle of a tectonic plate. I could look it up later, but thought I'd ask if anyone knew here of the top of their heads.

USGS is showing it as a 3.7 at a depth of 10km.

USGS Earthquake Hazards Program

 

3.7

2km WSW of Ramsgate, United Kingdom

2015-05-22 01:52:16 UTC

10.0 km

All quakes occur at faults but not all faults are on or associated with tectonic plate boundaries. Strain can build for a long time and some faults are not even known until they fail and cause a quake. The interactions are complex and other than saying a fault failure caused the quake there is generally no chain-of-events mechanism/data to explain a specific quake. This may be particularly true for this quake as I suspect the area has few seismometers.

 

Addendum:

I found the British equivalent of the USGS site and they have more details and give the magnitude as 4.2 and a depth of 13km.

Ramsgate Quake

The earthquake of the 22 May 2015 occurred at 02:52 BST0 (01:52 UTC), with an epicentre approximately 7 km south of Ramsgate, Kent. The instrumental magnitude was determined at 4.2 ML, and the earthquake was located approximately 24 km northeast of the magnitude 4.3 Folkestone earthquake that occurred on 28 April 2007. So far, over 1,000 felt reports from an automatic online questionnaire survey have been received from members of the public, almost all of them coming from within a 75 km radius of the epicentre, covering Ramsgate and Margate and their surrounding hamlets, as far south as Dover and Folkestone (approximately 18-26 km southwest of the epicentre), Canterbury (approximately 22 km to the west of the epicentre) and Herne Bay (approximately 20 km to the northwest of the epicentre). Further afield, reports have been received from the Faversham, Chatham, Basildon and Southend-on-Sea areas. The most distant reports have been received from Norwich, North Walsham and Cromer (see map).

 

Almost all of the reports indicated that people were awoken from their sleep. Over half the reports described the shaking strength of the earthquake to be moderate, mainly with a trembling effect, and described the sound strength as moderate. Over two thirds of the reports stated that windows rattled and one third reported furniture shaking. Reports described thought door to hotel was being kicked in, woke up alarmed, woke the whole household and neighbours with a bang that lasted 1-2 seconds, walls of house creaked, sounded like heavy object rolling over roof of the house, noise and the whole building just shaking the road made a weird loud noise too, banging of window shutters first, then rumbling noise faintly but shutter banging became louder, then four poster bed hangings were swaying and whole room seemed to be moving and I was lying in my bed watching something with my headphones on when I felt the bed shake

 

Updated at 11:30 BST (10:30 UTC), 22 May 2015

Since you felt it Dr. P, notice they have a link where you can report your experience. By all means do this as it helps geologists qualify the quake and its effects. >> Did you feel it?

 

 

Home page:British Geological Survey: Earthquake Seismology

Edited May 22, 2015 by Acme

[DrP]

I found the British equivalent of the USGS site and they have more details and give the magnitude as 4.2 and a depth of 13km.

Ramsgate Quake

 

 

 

Yea, various report I glimpsed on the news and stuff gave slightly different values for the magnitude. I live right near Ramsgate, so I guess that's why I felt it fairly strong.

 

Since you felt it Dr. P, notice they have a link where you can report your experience. By all means do this as it helps geologists qualify the quake and its effects. >> Did you feel it?

 

 

Home page:British Geological Survey: Earthquake Seismology

Cool - thanks, I'll check it out.

 

 

 

Filed my report of the experience in their survey.

 

 

I'm too far away to feel that one, shame.

 

Looks like I was right near it. Shook the bed about pretty vigorously for about 5 seconds and woke me up... I remember thinking straight away that it was stronger than the last one and was wondering how long it was going to last. Pretty cool - wouldn't want to be in a big one though :-/

Edited May 23, 2015 by DrP