3f735567-79e7-dfce-e063-3050940a6481 English dataset British Geological Survey +44 131 667 1000 The Lyell Centre, Research Avenue South EDINBURGH LOTHIAN EH14 4AP United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk pointOfContact 2026-03-19 UK GEMINI 2.3 http://data.bgs.ac.uk/id/dataHolding/13608537 WGS 84 (EPSG::4326) Offshore seismic hazard models and maps for the UK Exclusive Economic Zone 2025-07-21 creation http://data.bgs.ac.uk/id/dataHolding/13608537 A new, robust seismic hazard model and seismic hazard maps for the UK offshore Exclusive Economic Zone using the latest available data and recent advances in seismic hazard methodology and a Monte Carlo-based approach for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. These are intended to update the current maps for UK waters published in 2002. We developed a comprehensive catalogue of earthquake activity across the region by combining existing earthquake catalogues and data from regional and local monitoring agencies. We modelled earthquake occurrence across the region using a seismic source characterisation (SSC) model that consists of a series of zones, where seismicity is considered to be homogeneous, based on tectonics, geology and seismicity of the study area. We use four different seismic source zone models within the SSC to capture the epistemic uncertainty in different rupture scenarios. A logic tree approach was used to account for the epistemic uncertainty in earthquake activity rates, maximum magnitude, earthquake depth distribution, and faulting style. Ground motions are estimated for different rupture scenarios using a ground motion characterisation (GMC) model that consists of five multiple ground motion prediction equations considered to be applicable to the region. The GMPEs are included in a logic tree where the weights are informed by the fit between observed and modelled ground motions. The GMC model also includes the host-to-target adjustments and a single-station sigma model. Hazard is calculated at 4585 individual points spaced at 0.125° in latitude and 0.25° in longitude for peak ground acceleration (PGA) and spectral acceleration at 0.2 s (SA0.2 s) and 1.0 s (SA1.0 s) for 5% damping and rock conditions and the return periods of 95, 475, 1100, 2475, and 5000 years. This is the first time that maps of the seismic hazard at short (0.2 s) and long periods (1.0 s) have been produced for UK waters. Hazard curves, uniform hazard spectra, and disaggregation analysis have been calculated for three offshore carbon capture and storage sites (Endurance, Acorn, and HyNet North West). New offshore hazard maps for the UK waters will support UK decarbonisation by providing owners and operators of offshore structures with robust estimates of seismic hazard for new and existing sites. The results will also inform regulatory decisions to ensure safe operating practices in the industry and help identify areas of higher hazard where further site-specific studies might be needed. Finally, it will provide a robust baseline for tectonic seismic activity in the North Sea that can be used to help discriminate any seismicity induced by operations, such as CCS, in the event it occurs. The technical report by Mosca et al. (2024), which provides a detailed description of the methods and results, together with the project’s products, can be found in (http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/hazard/UKhazard.html). Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3142 0115 936 3276 The Lyell Centre, Research Avenue South EDINBURGH LOTHIAN EH14 4AP United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk distributor Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3142 0115 936 3276 The Lyell Centre, Research Avenue South EDINBURGH LOTHIAN EH14 4AP United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk originator Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3143 0115 936 3276 Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth NOTTINGHAM NOTTINGHAMSHIRE NG12 5GG United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk distributor Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3143 0115 936 3276 Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth NOTTINGHAM NOTTINGHAMSHIRE NG12 5GG United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk pointOfContact Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3143 0115 936 3276 Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth NOTTINGHAM NOTTINGHAMSHIRE NG12 5GG United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk originator Enquiries British Geological Survey United Kingdom not available distributor Enquiries British Geological Survey United Kingdom not available pointOfContact notApplicable https://resources.bgs.ac.uk/images/geonetworkThumbs/3f735567-79e7-dfce-e063-3050940a6481.png Geology GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 2008-06-01 publication Seismicity Earthquakes Simulation Models Natural hazards BGS Thesaurus of Geosciences 2022 revision Citable Data MEDIN NGDC Deposited Data dataCentre NERC_DDC otherRestrictions licenceOGL Available under the Open Government Licence subject to the following acknowledgement accompanying the reproduced NERC materials "Contains NERC materials ©NERC [year]" otherRestrictions The copyright of materials derived from the British Geological Survey's work is vested in the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC]. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a retrieval system of any nature, without the prior permission of the copyright holder, via the BGS Intellectual Property Rights Manager. Use by customers of information provided by the BGS, is at the customer's own risk. In view of the disparate sources of information at BGS's disposal, including such material donated to BGS, that BGS accepts in good faith as being accurate, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the quality or accuracy of the information supplied, or to the information's suitability for any use. NERC/BGS accepts no liability whatever in respect of loss, damage, injury or other occurence however caused. Available under the Open Government Licence subject to the following acknowledgement accompanying the reproduced NERC materials "Contains NERC materials ©NERC [year]" vector English geoscientificInformation British Geological Survey Gazetteer: Geographical hierarchy from Geosaurus 1979 creation UK CONTINENTAL SHELF [id=121701] -14.8900 3.4000 47.4300 63.8800 2023-03-01 2025-01-23 Text file (TXT) witheld Comma-separated values (CSV) witheld Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3142 0115 936 3276 The Lyell Centre, Research Avenue South EDINBURGH LOTHIAN EH14 4AP United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk distributor Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3143 0115 936 3276 Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth NOTTINGHAM NOTTINGHAMSHIRE NG12 5GG United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk distributor Enquiries British Geological Survey United Kingdom not available distributor https://webapps.bgs.ac.uk/services/ngdc/accessions/index.html#item189080 WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download Data download https://doi.org/10.5285/a6babafa-5c82-4e76-aef5-27441104187f WWW:LINK-1.0-http--related Citation Information - Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Mosca, I., Baptie, B., Haslam, R., Gafeira, J., Jenkins, G. (2025). Offshore seismic hazard models and maps for the UK Exclusive Economic Zone. NERC EDS National Geoscience Data Centre. (Dataset). https://doi.org/10.5285/a6babafa-5c82-4e76-aef5-27441104187f information dataset dataset INSPIRE Implementing rules laying down technical arrangements for the interoperability and harmonisation of Geology 2011 publication See the referenced specification false Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services 2010-12-08 publication See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:323:0011:0102:EN:PDF false We use probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA), which combines seismological, geological and geophysical data to produce a probabilistic description of expected ground shaking that may occur at a site. This consists of four steps: 1) Definition of seismic sources based on the tectonics, geology and seismicity in the region, forming a seismic source model (SSM). 2) Quantification of the rate of earthquake occurrence for each seismic source using the Gutenberg-Richter law. 3) Characterisation of the ‘earthquake effect’. 4) Estimation of the hazard at the site(s) by integrating over the seismic sources for the location and size of future earthquakes with expected ground shaking. We used Monte Carlo-based PSHA to generate artificial catalogues by random sampling of the probability distributions in the SSM and computing the predicted ground motion for the synthetic events.