Minor earthquake off Gozo rocks nobody

An earthquake measuring 3.4 on the Richter Scale occurred 30 kilometres west of Gozo at 8.13 a.m. yesterday.

The earthquake was recorded and located by the Seismic Monitoring and Research Unit within the Physics Department of the University.

Another earthquake, measuring 1.8 on the Richter Scale, occurred on Saturday, 20 kilometres off the south east coast of Malta.

Seismologist Pauline Galea said when contacted that the University had not received any reports of anyone feeling any of the tremors. Recently, there had been quite a few shakes, she said, but this was nothing extraordinary because there would be periods when faults would be more active than usual. A fault is a split between two masses of rock in the earth's crust.

Dr Galea said that when an earthquake was recorded in Greece on January 6, the University had received reports from about 350 people in Malta who had felt the tremor.

www.phys.um.edu.mt/seismic