Greek Earthquakes

[Cariadco]

Last night, here in Corfu, we suffered many small earthquake/tremors.
Not looked into it, yet, but were these felt across other areas?
I'm wondering mostly about levkas, which seams to suffer most.
Regards.

 

[B&M]

http://www.geophysics.geol.uoa.gr/stations/maps/recent.html
Very good site to see all quakes in Greece

 

[Tony Cross]

The plate boundary between the African plate and the European plate, which runs down the west side of Greece, around the bottom of Crete and up the east side of Rhodes, is mostly a subduction zone. However in two places, to the southwest of Crete and to the west of Kefalonia and Lefkada, the subduction zone is a strike-slip fault.

Movement on a suduction zone generally causes earthquakes that are very deep (typically over 100km) and these are felt much less severely at the Earth's surface. Movement along a strike-slip fault causes earthquakes that are generally very shallow (typically less that 20km) and not only are these sorts of earthquakes felt much more severely at the Earth's surface but the nature of movement along strike-slip faults often produces larger earthquakes. The San Andreas fault (it's a plate boundary) is a strike-slip fault.

For this reason it is very common for earthquakes in the Ionian area and to the southwest of Crete to be quite severe. The most recent earthquake off Lefkada is a case in point. We also get a magnitude 6.5 plus off the southwest coast of Crete almost once a year - but this is a good thing because it prevents catastrophic stresses building up in those faults (there are actually two of them).

 

[duncan99210]

http://www.geophysics.geol.uoa.gr/stations/maps/recent.html
Very good site to see all quakes in Greece

Fascinating page. Seems to be a lot of activity round Ioanina just at the moment.

 

[Davy_S]

After living on Kefalonia for over 10 years I have witnessed many earthquakes, some causing damage, others none at all.
There are two types of earthquakes felt, one is very frightening and seems to happen at night, it almost sounds like a fast approaching train, loud but only a slight shake, over in 5 seconds, but it certainly wakes you up! The other type arrives without any warning, things slowly start to move, plates in cupboards rattle, telegraph poles sway, you can visibly see things moving, I have seen the faces of tourists sat in a bar when the steel beams in the roof start rattling. It usually stops after a couple of minutes, the place to look for damage on the houses are diagonal stress cracks, the Greeks fix them with polly filler!

 

[macd]

The plate boundary between the African plate and the European plate...is mostly a subduction zone.

Tony really should have declared a vested interest in subduction zones. Without them he'd have nowhere to live.
He's also a mine of fascinating info on the subject.