Turkey/Syria, Afghanistan, Morocco and Iceland in 2023, Japan in January, and most recently Taiwan. Is it normal to have so many large and devastating earthquakes in the course of a year? Earthquake expert Tormod Kværna responds.

Published:

Tormod and colleagues at NORSAR monitor seismic activity both in Norway and around the world.

- Norway is not located on a plate boundary, where most earthquakes occur. However, this is no guarantee, as we do not have a good reference point for the slow changes within the Earth that build up stresses and cause earthquakes. These are very slow processes that develop over several thousand years. Risk analyses show that if a larger earthquake were to occur, it could cause significant damage, especially in urban areas, and would particularly affect infrastructure. Therefore, it is important to secure constructions against earthquakes and monitor seismic activity, also considering the Norwegian oil installations offshore. But to put it this way: catastrophic earthquakes in Norway are not something I worry about in everyday life, he concludes.

Although the likelihood of major earthquakes in Norway is therefore low, the damage can be considerable. In DSB’s 2019 report on crisis scenario analyses, earthquakes in urban areas rank highest in risk-weighted damage potential.

We at NORSAR monitor earthquakes and operate the website jordskjelv.no. There you can view overviews of earthquakes on maps and individual events. In addition, we offer a digital earthquake zoning map for the construction and civil engineering industries.