Two new seismic devices, located in Gorj: INFP explains the earthquakes

Specialists of the National Research – Development Institute for Earth Physics announced, in a conference at the Gorj Prefect’s Institution, the placement of two more monitoring stages, as well as conclusions for the two earthquakes and the thousands of aftershocks that occurred in the county. In total, in Gorj, there are 10 monitoring stations.

Director Constantin Ionescu announced that a seismic station and a monitoring sensor will be placed in Târgu Jiu. One in Târgu Jiu, in the Central Park, and another in Tismana, in the village of Sohodol. INFP mentioned that it had the support of prefect Iulian Popescu for the placement of these devices and that there were situations in which many institutions and mayors refused to install these stations. “As the prefect (nr. Iulian Popescu) also said, INFP aims to monitor the seismicity of Romania. At the national level, we currently have over 200 seismic stations, 35 GPS equipment and other technologies with which we manage to monitor various natural and anthropogenic events. As you know, in February 2023 two earthquakes occurred in the Târgu Jiu area. At that time the population was panicked, but the Gorj county area is known as a seismically active area, but which is active at very high intervals. During that period, we installed seismic stations in the area here to locate earthquakes very well. We managed to detect, during the year 2023, around 4,200 earthquakes, with magnitudes between 0 and 5.7 degrees, in the area here. Our presence here is because after those earthquakes we bought more equipment and we want to put another seismic station in the area and a sensor to monitor the effects of earthquakes in the city, in Târgu Jiu”, said Constantin Ionescu, General Manager of the National Institute of Research – Development for Earth Physics.

Seismologist Mihai Diaconescu was also present at the press conference at the Prefecture. He gave some explanations regarding the causes of the earthquakes in Gorj.

“My name is Diaconescu, I am from INFP and I want to thank the Prefecture for the support it gave us in obtaining these locations. As for the cause, it took us a while to digest what was going on and work out some patterns. The first model, which has remained standing, looks at local causes, due to the existence of local faults in a pretensional zone. We are in an area of ​​curvature of the Carpathians. This area of ​​curvature is not just such a map, but there are some rocks that are molded after an arc of a circle, let’s say, that starts in this area and ends in the Balkans. These would be the local causes. The external causes are the influences due to the Turkish earthquakes, especially the 7.8 earthquake in southern Turkey, the energy of which propagated along the subduction plane of the African plate under the East European plate. This has been validated by the USGS through the Iris Education Center. From the territory of Romania, the seismic stations in the south of the Meridionali were noted, which show very clearly that Vrancea in the first movement was not influenced, but this area. Vrancea was affected in the 7.5 earthquake. The situation was complicated enough to go public all at once.”