September was characterised by average seismicity in the Mediterranean region and across the globe.

Of particular interest is the Icelandic volcano that has been erupting throughout the month. The volcanic activity also generated hundreds of earthquakes, even of magnitude 5.

Earthquakes around this volcano are caused as magma moves through channels below the volcanic structure. This type of volcano is different from other types of volcano such as those found in Japan.

In the latter, hot lava is generated from the rocks trapped between one plate subducting underneath the other, whereas volcanoes in Iceland are formed as lava pushes its way up and causes the spreading of the European and North American plates away from each other.

Readers are invited to join the University’s Seismic Monitoring and Research Unit (SMRU) Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/uom.smru for regular posts about earthquakes and volcanoes.

Quakes and shakes at Science in the City

On September 26 the SMRU took part in the annual Science in the City event.

Following last year’s success, children were again invited to jump up and down and create their own ‘earthquakes’.

New demonstrations were set up to help explain how buildings of various heights sway differently at different frequencies.

To the surprise of many, the tallest building does not necessarily sway the most!

Animated maps showed how plate boundaries found globally and in the Mediterranean region are seismically active with several earthquakes taking place each day. Earthquake-related educational material was distributed to the visitors.

Anyone who would like a digital copy of the educational material is invited to contact the SMRU.

http://seismic.research.um.edu.mt