Scotland was rocked by an earthquake near Kinloch in the Highlands on Sunday evening, with residents around Oban and the Isle of Mull left spooked after feeling the ground tremble beneath their feet.
A 2.9 magnitude quake at a depth of 24km was confirmed by the British Geological Survey (BGS) in a remote part of Lochaber. The movement was felt across other parts of western Scotland, too, shortly before 8.45pm.
The epicentre was in Kinloch about 30km (19 miles) north west of Oban. It was felt in Strontian and across to the Isle of Mull, Oban and surrounding villages, but did not cause damage or disruption as it was not strong enough.
This didn’t stop social media from erupting with questions about the unfamiliar feeling, though. A local Facebook group was buzzing off the back of the incident, with locals reporting “rumbles” and “glasses shaking in cupboards”.
But how common is seismic activity in Scotland? BGS detects around 200-300 quakes every year in the UK. Only about 30 of these events are felt by people or are heard as a deep rumbling sound or a loud bang.
Induced seismic events, those caused by human activity such as sonic booms, are also recorded.
The zones where hazard is higher than average encompass the West Highlands of Scotland, an arcuate zone running from Carlisle to Pembroke, NW Wales and W Cornwall. The places in the UK with lowest seismic hazard are Northern Ireland (especially the western counties) and outlying parts of Scotland, including the Orkneys and Outer Hebrides.
There is not a particularly high chance of any damage being incurred as a result of earthquakes in Scotland, though. BSG says that if a building has been standing for 50 years, there is only a 10 per chance that it will experience heavy-duty shaking. There is also only a 0.5 per cent chance of a 50-year-old single house being affected.
There have only been three significant earthquakes in Scotland since 1932. The most recent was in Kintail, located in a mountainous area at the head of Loch Duich in the Highlands, in 1974, which recorded a magnitude of 4.4.
The other two were felt in Inverness and Argyll in 1816 and 1880 respectively. The Inverness quake had a magnitude of 5.1 and caused “considerable damage”. while Argyll’s was Scotland’s largest, with a 5.2 magnitude.
Fast forward to today, Scots created an earthquake of their own in June last year when pop sensation Taylor Swift performed three sell out shows to 222,000 fans at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium on her Eras World Tour earlier this summer.
Monitoring stations detected seismic activity from 6km (3.73 miles) away as energetic fans stomped, cheered and danced throughout Swift’s impressive three and a half hour show, according to the BBC.
Fans at Murrayfield on June 7 are said to have made the ground move a maximum of 23.4 newton-meters (nm), compared to 22.8nm and 23.3nm on the Saturday and Sunday respectively.
The seismic activity was mainly caused by dancing and reportedly reached its peak at 160bpm during her performance of Ready For It? Fans created around 80kW of power during the song which equates to around 6,000 car batteries.
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