A magnitude 4.1 earthquake occurred close to Malta on June 26 at 10.51am. Its epicentre was about 150 kilometres west of Gozo (large red star on map). Another quake of magnitude 2.3 had occurred on June 25 just a few kilometres north-west of Gozo. No felt reports from either of these earthquakes were submitted to the University’s Seismic Monitoring and Research Unit ( http://seismic.research.um.edu.mt ). Globally, the largest earthquake that took place last month was located in the middle of the southern Atlantic Ocean (red circle on global map). Here the South American and the African tectonic plates are separating from each other, and new material is rising from deep inside the Earth to form new ocean crust.