The British Geological Survey have pegged last night’s Earthquake as a 5.2 on the Richter scale (the USGS previously calculated a 4.7).

They calculate that the epicentre was focused at Market Rasen in Lincolnshire, half way between Lincoln and Grimsby.

• DATE : 27 February 2008
• ORIGIN TIME : 00:56 GMT
• LAT/LONG :53.42° North / 0.35° West
• GRID REF : 509.4 kmE / 392.7 kmN
• DEPTH : 5.0 km
• MAGNITUDE : 5.2 Richter Scale (ML)
• LOCALITY : Market Rasen, Lincolnshire

According to the BGS, this was the UK’s largest Earthquake for 24 years.

The epicentre is approximately 4 km north of Market Rasen and reports suggest that the
earthquake has been felt widely across England, with reports of damage to chimneys in
the epicentral area. Earthquakes of this size occur in the mainland UK roughly every 30
years, although are more common in offshore areas. This is the largest earthquake in the
UK since the magnitude 5.4 ML Lleyn Peninsula earthquake in 1984, which was widely
felt across England and Wales.

The Earthquake was widely felt and reported across much of the country but luckily, it seems, British structures are sturdy enough to survive a magnitude 5.2 earthquake without serious damage. There have been some reports of chimney stacks falling and the only known injury was caused by one such occurrence. A 19 year old student from Barnsley was pinned under a fallen stack and later taken to hospital for surgery on a broken pelvis.

Apparently, there was an aftershock in the vicinity of the main earthquake at 2:46am but, measuring only 1.8 on the Richter scale, you’d have had to be standing very nearby to actually feel it.

The UK media went predictably nuts over the earthquake early on but managed to calm down by about lunch time when they realised that they weren’t going to find any scenes of gore and devastation.

You can read the full British Geological Survey Press Release here.[pdf]

Some more on this Earthquake:

According to the USGS, it was a magnitude 4.7 (Richter) earthquake centred approximately 30 miles south of Kingston-upon-Hull.

A link to full USGS details is here

Update 2:36am: Alternatively, according to the BGS, it was a 5.1, possibly 5.3 Update: Later revised back to a 5.2 in a BGS press-release. The BGS wesbite is here but go easy on clicking, they seem to be down under the load just now.

The thing is, as I can tell from various web forums, the quake was felt over pretty much the whole of England and some parts of Wales. Pardon me for being in awe, but that’s a lot of mass-in-motion

Apparently, it was felt strongly in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham. Unfortunately, some sheeple from distant parts of the country are already phoning their favorite TV stations in the customary state of feigned distress and the news outlets are gearing up for a “The Day The Earth Shook” style newsgasm or two. No doubt there’ll be a couple of comparisons to other far, far, larger earthquakes due to various newscaster’s failure to grasp that the Richter scale is logarithmic rather than linear.

It’s not readily apparent if there has been any damage or injuries but most if not all UK structures should withstand a magnitude 4.7 earthquake assuming they’re properly designed (although I can think of a conservatory or two which might have fallen down ).

Or perhaps more of a ‘tremor’ - relatively pathetic by international standards I should think.

At about 12:55am, I felt a mild East-West shaking motion here in North Warwickshire, lasting 5-10 seconds at a frequency of about 2Hz. A friend in the Harborne area of Birmingham felt a stronger up/down thrusting motion but did not tell me the frequency. Although there was no noise or apparent damage in Harborne, he reported loss of his cable internet connection and emergency services sirens immediately after the earthquake.

I suspect if the epicentre was nearby, this would be a milder quake than the 2002 earthquake which reached 5.0 on the Richter scale.

At this time, the BBC has the beginnings of a news report here. [potential sensationalism warning]