List of earthquakes near the BedrettoLab

The following maps and lists show all detected earthquakes since 01.01.2019 in the surroundings of the BedrettoLab.

The list contains all earthquakes, natural or induced, that have been detected by the national seismic network operated by the Swiss Seismological Service at ETH Zurich. The network can detect all earthquakes of potential relevance for the safety of the BedrettoLab and its surroundings. Additional, denser monitoring networks are installed within the BedrettoLab for specific experiments. This data is mainly relevant for scientific analyses, not available in real-time and therefore not publicly available.

At the BedrettoLab, we study how to create a deep geothermal reservoir without causing felt and damaging earthquakes and we also want to gain a better understanding of the physics of natural earthquakes. To this end, we will intentionally trigger tiny earthquakes at the BedrettoLab following strict safety protocols (learn more about risk mitigation strategies). We intend the largest of these earthquakes to be over a thousand times smaller (in their amplitude and energy) than an earthquake that might be felt by a person, e.g., in the Bedretto valley.

Generally, earthquakes with magnitudes of 2.5 or higher can be felt. At the BedrettoLab we are able, thanks to the dense network, to register events far below this threshold, including events with negative magnitudes. Negative magnitudes are possible because the zero point on the magnitude scale has no special physical significance. The magnitude scale is defined such that an increase by 0.2 units corresponds to a doubling of the earthquake energy. As such, a magnitude 0.0 earthquake is around twice as intense as a -0.2-magnitude earthquake, and approximately half as intense as a magnitude 0.2 earthquake.

The earthquake list contains only those locations that have been manually verified by seismologists. Current, automatically detected locations without manual revision can also be shown on the map. Please note that the automatically determined locations may be subject to high uncertainties (up to 5 km).