Earthquakes near Newdigate, Surrey, 2018

Researchers from BGS installing an additional monitoring station near Gatwick

A sequence of small earthquakes was recorded near Newdigate, Surrey, between 1 April and 31 August 2018. The largest had a magnitude 3.0 ML and four others had magnitudes of greater than 2.0 ML. Seven of the earthquakes were felt by people living nearby and there was public concern that the earthquake sequence may have been triggered by nearby hydrocarbon exploration and production.

Five temporary sensors were installed by BGS in mid-July close to the epicentral area to study the events in more detail.

Our analysis shows that earthquake epicentres are tightly clustered in a 3 km by 3 km source zone that lies between the villages of Newdigate and Charlwood, and at a distance of approximately 8 km from the Brockham oil field. Depths calculated using only recordings at distances of up to 10 km suggest that the events are most likely to have occurred at depths of approximately 2 km.

We use the criteria suggested by Davis and Frohlich (1993) to assess the available evidence that the earthquake sequence may have been induced. This suggests that the events are unlikely to have been induced.

A detailed report on the earthquake sequence can be found Here.

BGS's seismic monitoring provides an impartial source of earthquake data and calculated earthquake magnitude and location. Data from our stations are viewable on the real-time seismograms page of our website.

The BGS publishes detected events on our website page 'Earthquakes around the British Isles in the last 100 days'.

Map shows the location of detected earthquakes to date in Surrey (red circles). The circles are scaled by earthquake magnitude and coloured by time since 1 April 2018. The sensors installed in July are shown by the blue triangles. The locations of known boreholes in the area (blue squares) are taken from the OGA website.

• Introduction
• Regional Seismicity
• Background Activity Rates
• Fracking and Induced Seismicity
• Earthquakes induced by Hydraulic Fracturing Operations near Blackpool, UK

• BGS Environmental Baseline Monitoring
• Government guidance on fracking: developing shale oil and gas in the UK
• Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering review of the risks associated with hydraulic fracturing during shale gas exploration and production
• National Research Council, 2012. Induced seismicity potential in energy technologies, National Academies Press
• Seismological Research Letters: Special Issue on Injection-Induced Seismicity.
• British Geological Survey Shale Gas Project