Perth and Kinross has recorded more earthquakes than any other part of the UK this year, according to newly published figures from the
British Geological Survey (BGS).
Data covering the past 12 months shows that 309 earthquakes were detected across the UK by mid-December 2025, making the year above average for seismic activity. The most active areas were Perthshire and the western Highlands in Scotland, alongside parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire in England and southern Wales.
Most of the earthquakes were too small to be felt, but they were captured in detail by the BGS’s nationwide network of 80 monitoring stations, which continuously track ground movement with high precision.
A notable cluster of activity occurred near Loch Lyon in Perth and Kinross, where 34 earthquakes were recorded between October and December alone. The area was also the site of the UK’s two largest onshore earthquakes this year. On 20 October, a magnitude 3.7 tremor struck, followed just hours later by a magnitude 3.6 event.
Residents described the shaking as feeling “like a large lorry had crashed” or “an underground subway under my house,” while others reported windows rattling as their homes shook. BGS received 198 public “felt reports” after the Loch Lyon earthquakes, some from locations more than 60 kilometres away.
Elsewhere, a magnitude 3.2 earthquake in Lancashire in early December proved even more widely felt, generating nearly 700 reports from members of the public.
In total, 1,320 felt reports were submitted to BGS in 2025. This public feedback, often described as a form of citizen science, provides valuable context to seismic data by recording how earthquakes are experienced at the surface, including noise, shaking and disruption.
Dr Brian Baptie, a seismologist at BGS, said: "The data shows that earthquakes occurred in many parts of Great Britain over the past 12 months, with numerous events in Scotland, England and Wales that were each significant enough to be widely felt by many nearby.
Whilst thankfully major earthquakes of devasting magnitude are extremely unlikely, the country on average experienced an earthquake almost once a day this year.
It is a reminder that small earthquakes happen all the time and it remains of critical importance that they are studied to help us understand the possible impact of the rare large earthquakes on major energy and infrastructure projects around the country".
Although many UK earthquakes are too weak to be felt, the largest events recorded in the country, typically in the magnitude 5 to 6 range, can pose risks to buildings and infrastructure. Research carried out by BGS, partly funded through UK Research and Innovation, helps inform government, industry and regulators about seismic risk and how to mitigate it.
The BGS data also includes induced seismicity caused by human activity, such as sonic booms. These events are logged as part of a long-running archive of ground-motion recordings that stretches back several decades.
Earthquake magnitudes are measured using a logarithmic scale, meaning each increase represents a significant jump in energy. A magnitude 2 earthquake is 32 times more intense than a magnitude 1, while a magnitude 3 event releases nearly 1,000 times more energy.
Historically, Great Britain experiences a magnitude 4 earthquake every three to four years, a magnitude 5 event every few decades—the most recent in Lincolnshire in 2008—and a magnitude 6 event every few hundred years. The last earthquake of that scale was recorded in the North Sea in 1931.
Although such large events are rare, BGS says long-term monitoring is essential to build an accurate picture of seismic risk across the country. Further information, including a live feed of recent UK earthquakes, is available on the BGS website. Photo by PaulT (Gunther Tschuch), Wikimedia commons.