Four weak earthquakes struck close to Malta during July. Three occurred along the Malta graben, about 30 to 40 kilometres southwest of Malta (red stars on map), on July 9, 14 and 15. Another earthquake struck close to Sicily along the Malta Escarpment, on July 11, about 100km northeast of Malta. All four earthquakes had a magnitude of less than three.

If readers felt any earthquake-related shaking on these dates, they are invited to report their experience to the Seismic Monitoring and Research Unit at the University of Malta via the online questionnaire on http://seismic.research.um.edu.mt .

The seismicity in the Mediterranean as well as in other places across the globe was relatively normal, with no major earthquake exceeding magnitude seven. The main global earthquakes last month were all around the border of the Pacific Ocean, the so-called ‘ring of fire’. Such strong activity is expected in this region because of highly active tectonic processes.