§ Mr. Teddy TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information his Department has on historical evidence of earthquakes in the south-east of England; and what information has been collected about geological structures in the area which are associated with earthquakes.
§ Mr. TrippierMy Department has access to scientific and technical publications which contain records of historical earthquakes and information on geological structures in south-east England. It also receives reports on current seismic events detected by monitoring equipment operated by the British Geological Survey. Whilst documents referring to earthquakes are fairly numerous and over a period of over 1,000 years it is likely that only the largest events were recorded before modern332W monitoring arrangements commenced, the amount of information on each event is limited. The relationship between individual seismic events and specific geological structures is poorly known and information on deep geological structures in the south-east is fairly limited.