Series of shallow, significant magnitude quakes where I have never seen any before. Does anyone know more? Thanks, Dave
I don’t know, I’m gonna investigate that…
It indeed looks like it’s an unusual situation ongoing in Gabon.
Here’s what local press says : Gabon : Un séisme de magnitude 4.9 a frappé le centre du pays | Gabonreview.com | Actualité du Gabon |
On Twitter, seismologists are also wondering: https://twitter.com/stevenjgibbons/status/1368686576188919811?s=20
… Let’s stay tuned for more info!
Merci! Love the headline ‘frappe le centre du pays’! Seems like just two quakes out of the blue and now all quiet again. I think that is typical for mid-craton environments? Similar in Australia last year. The witness accounts sound quite scary, which I guess is not surprising as quakes are pretty rare / unexpected in that part of the world. I hope that Prof Lee White is correct in what he was saying in the linked story (although I don’t agree that it is ‘completely normal’)! Thanks again for the information, we can only wait and see now! Rgds DAC
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What happened in Australia last year?
Similar situation to the recent quakes in Gabon, in that there were a couple of moderate magnitude (4.5-5.5 from memory), in central NT Australia or W Australia, all far from any plate boundary, no active volcanism or anything. Just isolated quakes and then nothing since. I don’t know how these events might be triggered - is it just ancient faults settling down over geological time scales, or is there some way of transferring strain / forces from more active areas into stable craton centres? I anticipate it will be somewhere different again next time!
It is only noticeable because it is so far from expected earthquake locations that feature more regularly (ie daily) on the global M4.0+ map. I don’t have quantitative data I am afraid, just my casual observations…
Rgds DAC
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