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When it comes to earthquakes, always expect the unexpected. That’s the message coming from seismologists Prof Éric Calais, of the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris, and JeanFrançois Ritz, Director of Montpellier’s CNRS Laboratoire Géosciences.
Underpinning their advice is the reality that Earth sometimes shakes in places it shouldn’t. These mysterious events, called intraplate earthquakes, happen far from the active margins of tectonic plates and in places that are otherwise geologically quiet. Gaining a better understanding of them and an explanation for them has become the mission of the French scientists.