More than 300 earthquakes have been recorded in the UK this year, according to the British Geological Survey (BGS). The most active regions included Perthshire and the western Highlands in Scotland, southern Wales, and Yorkshire and Lancashire in England.
The two most powerful onshore earthquakes occurred on 20 October near Loch Lyon in Perth and Kinross: a 3.7-magnitude tremor followed by a 3.6-magnitude event. One resident described the sensation as “like an underground subway under my house”, while another said “the house shook and all the windows rattled”. The BGS received 198 “felt reports” from people up to 37 miles from the epicentre.
Between October and December, 34 of the 309 recorded earthquakes occurred near Loch Lyon. The third-largest onshore earthquake was a magnitude-3.2 event at Silverdale, Lancashire, on 3 December, with 700 people reporting the tremor. The strongest UK earthquake since measurements began remains the 1931 Dogger Bank earthquake of magnitude 6.1.
Dr Brian Baptie, a seismologist at the BGS, said: “The data shows that earthquakes occurred in many parts of Great Britain over the past 12 months, with numerous events in Scotland, England and Wales that were each significant enough to be widely felt by many nearby.” He noted that while significant quakes are rare, the UK experienced one virtually every day this year, highlighting the importance of studying them to understand potential impacts on major infrastructure projects.
The BGS uses a network of 80 monitoring stations to record seismic activity. Baptie attributed the activity in western Scotland to well-known geological faults like the Great Glen fault and the Highland Boundary fault. He added that earthquakes can occur in other parts of the UK due to geological faults activated by present-day stresses.
The BGS received 1,320 reports from the public who felt earthquakes this year. While most were too small to be felt, larger tremors of magnitude 5 to 6 can pose safety risks. A magnitude-4 event occurs every three to four years, a magnitude-5 every few decades, and a magnitude-6 every few hundred years.
