The Warwick Earthquake (September 23) was a mild tremor; one of many to have affected central England over geological time. Warwickshire is cross-crossed by many geological faults. Most of these are very old, and essentially inactive today. We understand that the Warwick Earthquake originated roughly 13 kilometres down in the Earth’s crust, just to the west of Warwick, close to Budbrooke. There, a tiny amount of movement on an ancient fault caused shock waves to spread upwards and outwards through the rock layers causing the tremor.
The Warwick ‘quake appears to have resulted ultimately from pressures building up in the Earth’s crust due to the process known as continental drift. As Africa continues to edge slowly northwards and the Atlantic Ocean continues to widen, Britain is effectively caught in the middle. From time to time something gives, and a small slip might occur along one of the many ancient faults which are zones of relative weakness.
Nothing To Fear
Central England is well known for its quiet geological location and we having nothing to fear from the mild tremors that occasionally affect our county. Major earthquake-prone areas such as parts of California sit astride huge active geological faults, moving at the rate of several centimetres a year. Documents within the Warwickshire Museum’s Geological Localities Record Centre confirm that local earthquakes are rare, so we can all rest assured of a quiet future.
Here’s a report of the tremor from The Telegraph website.
Your Memories
Does anyone have interesting memories of the Warwick Earthquake (the small hours of Saturday September 23rd, 2000)? The bed was shaking and it momentarily woke me. Our dog slept right through it! I completely forgot about the incident until I heard the local news the following morning.
Comments
I live within a mile of the epicentre of the earthquake and remember being woken in the night. The entire room was shaking and items fell off the top of the wardrobe. The whole event only lasted a few seconds after which my partner asked me what on earth could have happened? I said it was probably just an earth tremor and rolled over and went back to sleep.
I remember this Earthquake very well. It was my 33rd birthday and I was woken from my sleep with the bed and side table shaking. When I looked out of the window it was eerily silent. It left me with a pounding headache. A memorable birthday gift!
I remember the night vividly. I was alerted that something was happening by the noise made by a small screw lying on top of my PC case that started to roll around in circles all by itself. I knelt down on the floor to take a closer look then the ground started to sway, the whole house moving as one object. It was a very odd feeling and one that did not immediately suggest “Earthquake!” to my mind. I remember staying on my knees and hearing some very strange, unnatural sounds as the following seconds slowly passed. When everything stopped moving I went outside and, as another comment mentions, it was eerily silent. I’m not sure what made the silence seem odd, but it ‘just was’. Then all the birds started tweeting to each other all at once. My wife was asleep in bed and didn’t notice anything!
I woke up as the bed was shaking. It seemed to last for ages but everyone else including the cat slept through it. I went round the house the next morning looking for structural damage but luckily there was none.
My teenage son had a chinchilla as a pet in 2000. For a few days before the earthquake it was agitated, squeaked when approached, and would not come out of its cage for its daily exercise. After the earthquake it was fine and went on as before. Chinchillas are animals from South America and would be used to earthquakes. It obviously knew something we didn’t.
Living near Warwick Station, used to heavy goods train rumbling through in early hours. Woke up as radio rattling violently on top of cabinet and thought it was a very heavy goods train!
This earthquake may have been caused due to over abstraction of water from the borehole in Budbrooke at the time…….The local water company had over abstracted on that particular day.
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