The Derby Earthquakes of March 24th and May 3rd, 1903

Abstract

As a seismic region, Derbyshire is marked by few earthquakes, though parts, and even the whole, of the county are occasionally disturbed by shocks from other British centres. To find one that will compare in strength with the principal subject of this paper, we must go back more than a century, to November 18th, 1795, when a shock was felt over a district reaching in one direction from Leeds to Bristol, and in the other from Norwich to Liverpool. The dimensions of the disturbed area are given by Dr. E. W. Gray, F.R.S., as about 165 miles from norta to south, and about 175 miles from east to west. ‘In this latter direction, or rather from north-east to south-west,’ he remarks, ‘it may be said to have reached nearly across the island.’ The area disturbed cannot have been less, and may have been much more, than 23,000 square miles; while, if we may judge from the places where chimneys were wholly or partly destroyed (Derby, Chesterfield, and Ashover), the epieentre may have coincided approximately with that of the principal earthquake of 1903. In another respect there seems to have been a close resemblance between the two shocks. It is probable from Dr. Gray's account ( op. cit. p. 365), that the earthquake of 1795 was what I have termed a ‘twin’-earthquake, that it consisted of two distinct parts separated by a very short interval of rest and quiet. That this was a characteristic feature of the earthquake of 1903 was evident