Shake, rattle and roll

It's now a week since the first earthquake that we felt here. That one occurred on the 14th February just after midday at 12:09. Later the same afternoon we felt another, the feeling being very similar, the ground seeming to move from side to side, very little vertical movement, similar to being on a boat in harbour when another passes by. Yesterday we felt yet another, this time it lasted a little longer that the previous two, maybe around 40-45 seconds.

Checking on the activity in the area I discovered that there have now been 52 "incidents" since the 14th. These include 3 earthquakes over 6 on the Richter scale, the rest being mostly in the range 3-4. They are in an area directly out to sea from us, about 30-35 miles away. You can have look at these using the "European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre" web site at http://www.emsc-csem.org.

What is happening in this area? Are we about to see a volcano or new island rise up out of the sea as Surtsey did back in 1963? I very much doubt that, hopefully the activity will just die down in the next few days.