Are earthquakes a phenomenon in Antarctica?

Yes, earthquake is a phenomenon in Antarctica just like the rest of the world, but it does not occur often.

One of the biggest earthquakes that have occurred in Antarctica is the one that had a magnitude 8. This happened on the Balleny Islands.

One major reason why there are fewer earthquakes in Antarctica compared to other plates such as North America and Australia is that in Antarctica, there are fewer seismic stations that can take records of them.

Most of the seismic stations are located at the edge of the continent, and not the interior of Antarctica, so small earthquakes are likely to go undetected.

Of course, earthquakes are occurring phenomena in the Antarctica continent. Though in times past, scientists suggested that there were no earthquakes in Antarctica, but recent findings reveal that earthquakes do occur in Antarctica.

The Natural Geoscience Journal makes it known in the year 2009 that about 27 different scenes of earthquakes occur in the eastern part of the Antarctic continent. Seismic activities occur in Antarctica just like the other parts of the earth, but it was believed that the presence of ice there subdues the seismic activities.

In the year 1982 up till a couple of years after, only eight earthquakes occur in the continent, which left the scientists wondering. In addition, one of the things that did not make the earthquake to be easily observed is the presence of ice which is covering the earth.

This, a noticeable occurrence, is the occurrence of icequakes. It was in the year 1982 that the geologists experienced the first occurrence of an earthquake in the continent.

Hopefully, earthquakes will remain a phenomenon (exceptional event) rather than the norm but global warming is apparently causing extreme weather events to occur more frequently worldwide. They are more frequent along fault-lines such as in California.

Antarctica has not had many but they are much less frequent than quakes on the plate boundaries. However, there have been some big earthquakes. One had a magnitude 8. That occurred in the Balleny Islands. As with the interior area of all tectonic plates, earthquakes can and do occur in Antarctica.

It is just not a region that we associate with earthquakes as those that occur in occupied regions naturally cause more alarm.