What causes earthquakes in Hungary?
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According to origo.hu, compared to other regions of the Earth, the Carpathian Basin counts as a relatively peaceful place from a seismic view. But the truth is that it is not peaceful at all. Due to the very deep plate tectonic processes, more than one million quakes bust the crust every year.
The majority of these quakes can only be detected by special instruments, the number of moderately strong (at least magnitude 6 on the Richer scale) earthquakes is only around 200, while there’s only 2-3 truly destructive (magnitude 8 or more) earthquake every year.
Hot upwelling from the depths of the Earth
Earthquakes are globally caused by the drift of substances – the thermal motion of the cape’s hot, melted detritus – in the core of our planet. The plates of the firm crust, the lithosphere, are “floating” on the viscose asthenosphere due to thermal motions that are coming from the deep. The lithospheric plates are in constant, slow movement.
The plate motions can happen affront each other, which signifies percussive or convergent plate borders, but the lithospheric plates can also move away from each other, which creates divergent plate borders. Also, the plates can slide by each other.
High energy tensions pile up in the crust in all three cases, and, when they bust, we can talk about seismic activity or earthquakes. 90% of the earthquakes can be detected at the plate borders.
Unpeaceful microplate at the depth of the Adriatic Sea
Hungarian earthquakes are caused by the collision of the African and Eurasian plate. This process has been going on for a very long time on a human scale. India joined Asia about 37-35 million years ago, at the end of the Eocene period. This, the coalescence of Africa and the Arabian plate, and then its collision with Eurasia triggered the Alpine orogenesis, and the upthrust of the Eurasian Mountain Range, including the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Carpathians, the Dinarides and the Himalaya. The African-European plate border is still active.
The upthurst of the Eurasian Mountain Range