One area of concern to some people about drilling exploratory wells for gas is the idea that this process can cause seismic activity. The truth is that recorded incidents of seismic activity associated with exploratory drilling are extremely rare given that discontinuities in the earth’s crust (active faults) that can be considered “seismogenic” (meaning that they can generate earthquakes) are located tens of kilometers deep down (20-50-100km) close to plate boundaries and therefore cannot be affected by drilling that only reaches depths of a few thousand meters.

However, there may be natural earthquakes that are documented on a daily basis around the world, and there are geophysical observatories to monitor natural earthquake activity in all regions of Europe. The western sector of the Betic Cordillera is not considered a seismically active region.

Induced seismicity, unlike natural seismicity, is caused by human activities such as mining, deep mining, hydrogeological extraction or fluid disposal, and activities associated with unconventional extraction of hydrocarbons. In any case, there are strict guidelines in place to ensure that seismic monitoring is carried out before during and after any activity.