By 2025, scientists estimate that about once a year to have an earthquake of a magnitude of more than 4.0.
Scientists from South Korea and the Netherlands predicted the timing of the onset of the devastating earthquake in the province of Groningen, which produces about 10 percent of EU natural gas. Dedicated to this study, Preprint available on the website arXiv.org.
By 2025, scientists estimate that about once a year to have an earthquake of a magnitude of more than 4.0. The probability that in 2025 will be registered earthquakes with magnitude more than 5.0, equal to one percent.
To such conclusions experts have come, analyzing the growth of seismic activity in the province of Groningen over the past decade, and existing geophysical surveys, and conducting laboratory experiments. They obtained data used for the compilation of the dependence of the Gutenberg-Richter law, which describes the relationship between the magnitude and frequency of earthquakes.
In the province of Groningen is the eighth-largest natural gas field in the world. With its development is connected with the emergence in the 1970-ies in the country of “Dutch disease” — overdependence of the economy on natural resource extraction.
A large part of the province of Groningen, which is home to about 600 thousand people, is located below sea level. Due to the active natural gas production there is a gradual subsidence of the soil, and since 1986, frequent occurrence of induced (man made) earthquakes of magnitude 3.6.
