10,000 earthquakes in swarm reported on German-Czech border- magma on the move say geologists

August 27, 2011 – W. Bohemia, CZ – The Geophysical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic says it has recorded almost 10,000 earthquakes during the last three days in West Bohemia, a region located close to the Czech Republic’s western border with Germany. The earthquake swarm started late on Tuesday and continued through Friday. While many have gone unnoticed by the local population some of the larger tremors, including eight quakes exceeding 3 magnitude have been felt in the towns of Chemnitz, Karlovy Vary, Birch, and Luby. The most recent earthquake measured 3.6 magnitude on the Richter Scale and hit at 0645hrs GMT on Friday at a shallow depth of three miles. The quake epicentre was located 81 miles (129 km) NE of Nürnberg 82 miles (131 km) SW of Dresden, 90 miles (144 km) W of Praha, 128 miles (204 km) NW of Budejovice, 131 miles (210 km) NNW of Schärding, and 227 miles (364 km) NW of Wien. Commenting on the latest earthquake swarm, the Geophysical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic stated: “The activity started in the evening of 23 August and is almost continuous till now (26 August morning). Almost 10 000 events were recorded in total up to now. Already eight events M>3.0 and 200 M>2.0 occurred. The location of hypocenters directly below the NKC station, so it appears a new patch of the fault plane is being activated.” In recent years, scientists have noted an increase in the movement of magma towards the earth’s surface in the Cheb Basin, western Czech Republic. They say rising magma could be one of the causes of the earthquake swarms, which regularly occur in the Vogtland, North-West Bohemia, the Fichtelgebirge and the Upper Palatinate. The last earthquake swarm to occur before this week’s activity was in 2008. –IWO

1000 quakes in 4 days: The Germany Czech border area has been hit by an earthquake swarm with mainly very weak earthquakes; the strongest ones measuring 4.0 and 3.6. The earthquakes started their sequence on Tuesday. The earthquakes started their sequence on Tuesday. Cheb/ Vogtland is a seismically-active area where the seismographs did record a lot of activity (a lot of which cannot be felt by humans). The earthquake has been felt in a moderate area radius near a few dozen kilometers from hypocentra. Tremors felt the people in Karlovy Vary, Lower Zandov or Birch. Since Tuesday, more than 1,000 earthquakes were registered (yes, this is not an error as 99% of these quakes could only be measured with instruments and cannot be felt by humans). The epicenters are moving slowly to the northeast. A similar earthquake swarm was recorded three years ago. By Thursday evening, dozens of seismographs recorded aftershocks. Reported damage at the present magnitudes includes cracks in walls, fallen objects and occasionally a collapsed chimney. This occurs mostly in older brick houses. –The Earthquake Report

contribution Craig