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Historic British Earthquakes

In a low seismicity country like the UK, even moderate earthquakes are rare. To get an accurate picture of how often the larger events occur, we need to extend our window of observation back in history. This means examining all available historical records for reports of ground shaking and determining if this could have been due to an earthquake. Earthquake location and magnitude are estimated from the intensity of the shaking at different locations. The following list is a extract of the M5+ earthquakes, given by Musson (1994), A Catalogue of British Earthquakes, British Geological Survey, Technical Report WL/94/04.

Date Time Lat Lon Depth  Mag  Region
1382/05/21 15:00:00 51.340 2.000 25.0 5.8 DOVER STRAITS
1382/05/24 05:30:00 51.340 2.000 5.0 DOVER STRAITS
1575/02/26 17:00:00 53.200 -1.600 5.0 MIDLANDS
1580/04/06 18:00:00 51.060 1.600 22.0 5.8 DOVER STRAITS
1690/10/07 07:15:00 53.000 -4.200 5.2 CAERNARVON
1727/07/19 04:00:00 51.570 -3.760 25.0 5.2 SWANSEA
1775/09/08 21:45:00 51.730 -3.810 19.0 5.1 SWANSEA
1786/08/11 01:55:00 54.530 -3.680 16.0 5.0 WHITEHAVEN
1816/08/13 22:45:00 57.430 -4.330 18.0 5.1 INVERNESS
1843/03/17 00:55:00 53.920 -3.790 17.0 5.0 IRISH SEA
1852/11/09 04:25:00 53.020 -4.300 24.0 5.3 CAERNARVON
1853/04/01 22:45:00 49.150 -1.700 21.0 5.2 COUTANCES
1863/10/06 03:22:00 52.000 -2.800 25.0 5.2 HEREFORD
1878/01/28 11:53:00 49.800 -0.600 16.0 5.0 NORMANDY
1880/11/28 17:45:00 56.190 -5.300 25.0 5.2 ARGYLL
1889/05/30 20:19:00 49.400 -0.600 25.0 5.2 NORMANDY
1892/08/18 00:24:00 51.700 -5.040 26.0 5.1 PEMBROKE
1893/11/02 17:45:00 51.810 -4.410 24.0 5.0 CARMARTHEN
1896/12/17 05:32:00 52.020 -2.550 20.0 5.3 HEREFORD
1901/09/18 01:24:00 57.430 -4.320 11.0 5.0 INVERNESS
1906/06/27 09:45:00 51.620 -3.810 13.0 5.2 SWANSEA
1925/02/01 21:52:00 49.160 -5.220 25.0 5.1 BRITTANY
1926/07/30 13:19:00 49.170 -1.620 18.0 5.5 CHANNEL ISLANDS
1926/08/15 03:58:00 52.310 -2.660 17.0 4.8 LUDLOW
1927/02/17 23:17:00 49.170 -1.620 22.0 5.4 CHANNEL ISLANDS
1931/06/07 00:25:00 54.080 1.500 23.0 6.1 NORTH SEA
1957/02/11 15:43:00 52.820 -1.330 13.0 5.3 DERBY
1958/02/09 23:21:00 53.750 1.010 16.0 5.1 NORTH SEA