It became clear what caused the surprising earthquake in Gorj, last year

The earthquakes in February of last year in Gorj County, of 5.2 and 5.7 magnitude respectively, were not provoked, Mihai Diaconescu, specialist of the National Research and Development Institute for Earth Physics ( INFP).

“Regarding the cause of the earthquakes, it is true that in the first two weeks (after the earthquakes – no) we were not too firm in having a clear opinion, but we needed a period in which to assimilate what was happening and to elaborate some models.

The first model, which has remained standing (…), regarding local causes, due to the existence of local faults in a pre-tensioned area, we know that we are in an area of ​​curvature of the Carpathians, this area is not just like that, a map, but there are some rocks that are shaped according to an arc of a circle, let’s say, that starts here in this area and ends in the Balkans.

The external causes are the influences due to the Turkish earthquakes, especially the 7.8 earthquake in southern Turkey, whose energy propagated on the subduction plane of the African plate, under the Eastern European plate (…).

From the Romanian territory, the seismic stations in the south of the Meridional Carpathians, respectively south of Târgu Cărbuneşti, where it shows very clearly that Vrancea was not influenced, but this area, Vrancea was influenced by the 7.5 earthquake, which was after the one of 7.8 (from Turkey – no). (…) The situation was complicated enough to be made public all of a sudden, without any argument, apart from our expertise,” said the INFP specialist.

In context, Constantin Ionescu specified that, during the past year, 4,900 earthquakes were recorded at the national level, of which 4,200 were in Gorj county alone.

“The area in Gorj County is known to be seismically active, but it is activated at very long intervals. In geophysics or geology, the production times of significant earthquakes cover a generation or two.

Because of this, our generations do not remember or have not experienced earthquakes in the area here, and this is where the panic from that moment came from.

During that period, we installed seismic stations in the area here in order to locate the earthquakes very well. Until the time of the earthquakes, there were a few seismic stations because, not having the active area, it was not of interest to monitor the locations. (…)

We managed to detect during the year 2023 4,200 earthquakes with magnitudes between 0 and 5.7 degrees, so many earthquakes occurred in the area here. At the national level in 2023, 4,900 earthquakes occurred. 230 earthquakes occurred in Vrancea, the rest in other seismic regions – Banat, Galaţi, NW Romania,” the INFP director also said.

He added that, at the national level, the Institute has over 200 seismic stations, 35 GPS equipment and other technologies with which they monitor various natural and anthropogenic events.