Month: December 2019

The earthquake highlight in Switzerland in 2019 was the swarm in the Wildhorn-Sanetschpass area which started in early November. An often-asked question is whether the swarm is already over. It is not an easy to question to answer, as there is generally some background seismic activity in the area. The figure below shows the located earthquakes near the recent swarm throughout the year 2019 and until today. Based on this, it seems too early to answer whether the swarm has really finished; for that, a longer observation time will be needed.

Late November Iain Stewart was the guest of the ELSTE Earth science MSc program, and gave a great and enlightgening talk on “Natural hazards: how to communicate to save lives“. The full videorecording can be viewed freely online at this page – highly recommended for those interested!

The seismic swarm in the Valais has started over a month ago, on November 5th. Several earthquakes have been felt in about 10 days, then the intensity of the activity decreased. Yet, smaller earthquakes still continue to occur there, as shown on the graph below.

Another graph showing the even longer term trend will be posted here later.