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Earlier this afternoon, the earth shook again in Croatia and the seismic shock waves that erupted could be felt in many parts of Hungary. According to the Richter scale, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake is a strong seismic event, as a result of which even stronger buildings can be damaged at a distance of 50 to 80 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake. Similar, and even stronger, earthquakes can be expected in the future, because the Adriatic region and the Balkan Peninsula are seismically active areas due to their geological conditions.
The earth shook again in Croatia
Today, the epicenter of the earthquake that struck at 12:19 pm Central European Time was just a hundred kilometers from the border with Hungary and 42 kilometers southeast of the Croatian capital, Zagreb. On the Richter scale, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake turned out to be much stronger than yesterday’s 5.2 earthquake.
The current seismic event is one of the so-called shallow nest tremors,
and that it erupted in the earth’s crust at a depth of about five kilometers.
The seismic shock wave could be felt in Hungary in the regions near the border, mainly in Baranya county, but with the exception of the northeast part of the country, there were reports of tremors almost everywhere.
More earthquakes cannot be ruled out, and similar and even stronger future seismic events may occur in the future due to the specific geological conditions of the area.
An ancient ocean closes
The central and northeastern regions of the Mediterranean basin, Italy, the Balkans and Turkey, have been shaken by a series of recent and large-scale earthquakes.
The roots of seismic and partially volcanic activity in the region, which is geographically relatively close to Hungary, can be traced back to the geological past;
we can talk about tectonic processes that have been going on for tens of millions of years and still take place today,
due to the collision of the African and Eurasian continental plates.
Today’s Mediterranean geological predecessor, the Tethys Ocean, was another thousands of kilometers wide at the beginning of the Mesozoic (249 million to 65 million years ago), including today’s Eurasia and Africa, South America, Antarctica, and Australia. it was the equatorial ocean that separated Gondwana.
With the fragmentation of Gondwana, Africa, as well as the Indian subcontinent, began to move north over millions of years, gradually closing the Tethys ocean.
The closing process of Tethys ended approximately 34 million years ago at the beginning of the Oligocene era, when India became the Eurasian plate, digesting the oceanic crust of Tethys and wrinkling the Himalayas (a process that still continues).
To the west of this, the African plate collided with the Eurasian plate, leading to the formation of Alpine mountains,
and in the “union line” of the closure of Tethys, an entry depression was formed from east to west, the current Mediterranean basin.
The “wild” movement of the Adriatic peak causes earthquakes in the area
In the collision of the African and Eurasian record, a piece of the Adriatic-Apulian record that lived independently left Africa. Also known as Adriatic Peak, a microplate with a predominantly continental crust
performs an independent movement independent of the great Eurasian plate,
and a part of the Eurasian plate was pressed under the Adriatic-Apulia microplate in a completely unusual way in plate tectonics.
(As a general rule, an oceanic crust much thinner and denser than continental crust tends to push under the earth’s crust. The collapse of the surrounding oceanic crust, so-called subduction, is accompanied by intense volcanic and seismic processes). However, not only the Eurasian plate,
but also the remains of the oceanic crust of Africa have displaced under the Adriatic-Apulia microplate,
which is why this fragment of the plate, which covers the eastern middle part of the Italian peninsula, the Adriatic basin and all of Slovenia, still rotates today.
(This can be attributed, among other things, to the rise of the eastern Adriatic coast and the simultaneous sinking of the Italian coast.) , sometimes very strong earthquakes.
Fortunately, Hungary is not a seismically active area, but the continuity of forces deep in the earth is well illustrated by the 100-200 domestic breakdown of less than 2.5 on the Richter scale, which can only be detected with instruments.
In Hungary, an earthquake of magnitude 4.5-5 occurs on average every ten years,
which, in turn, are already well noticeable and can cause minor damage.
Fortunately, earthquakes of 6 or higher on the Richter scale, like the ones that just happened in Croatia, are fortunately very rare in Hungary.
The strongest seismic event in Hungary’s history was the Komárom earthquake that erupted on June 28, 1763, whose magnitude is estimated by experts at 6.2 and 6.3, respectively. The Komárom earthquake claimed 63 lives and caused extremely serious material damage.
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