North Staffordshire earthquakes

Two earthquakes in the Shelton area on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009. The Christmas Eve event was felt in Stoke.

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In the early hours of 8th June 2005 at 01:21 UTC there was a magnitude 2.6 earthquake in the Wolstanton-Cobridge area. There are reports of the quake being felt from a wide area across the Potteries. The event is in an area of previous seismic activity in the mid to late 1990s that was related to coal-mining in the area. The map below shows the latest earthquake as a pentagon with historical seismicity shown as circles.

We detected the earthquake on our seismic network that was in Northwich, Cheshire. The network was run by the Applied and Environmental Geophysics Group to monitor the abandoned salt mines beneath Northwich town centre and was funded by English Partnerships Land Stabilisation Program. Seismograms of the event are shown below.

A series of 6 earthquakes near Whitmore with magnitudes between 1.3 and 2.3. Detected on our seismic network in Northwich. The picture shows the largest of these events on 22nd February 2003 at 11:24.

Magnitude ML 1.7
Location Cobridge-Wolstanton, Stoke-on-Trent
This is the largest earthquake in this area since August 9, 1998

Magnitude ML 2.4
Location: Near Whitmore Wood, North of Whitmore, Staffordshire
This tremor is the largest event in this location since the tremor of September 7 (see below).

Magnitude ML 2.6
Location: Near Whitmore Wood, North of Whitmore, Staffordshire
This tremor, the largest recorded in the local area, occurred approximately one mile southwest of the area of seismicity caused by the last phase of mining at the Silverdale Mine towards the end of 1998.

This is the largest event in the North Staffs region since a magnitude 2.8 event on May 6th, 1996 in Cobridge, Stoke-on-Trent

Felt Reports from Wrinehill, Madeley, Onneley, Maer, Tittensor, Whitmore, Baldwin's Gate, Trentham, Clayton and Keele

BGS Location : 52.93°N, 2.27°W (381.6km E, 337.2km N)

Earthquake seismograms from Keele and Newchapel