Abstract
A swarm of earthquakes of magnitudes up to M=3.8 stroke the region of West Bohemia/Vogtland in October 2008. It occurred in the Novy Kostel focal zone, where also all recent earthquake swarms (1985/1986, 1997, and 2000) took place, and was striking by a fast sequence of macroseismically observed earthquakes.
We present the basic characteristics of this swarm based on the observations of a local network WEBNET (West Bohemia seismic network), which has been operated in the epicentral area, on the Czech territory. A comparison with previous earthquake swarms indicates that the total seismic moments released during the 1985/1986 and 2008 swarms are similar, of about 4E16 Nm, and that they represent the two largest swarms that occurred in the West Bohemia/Vogtland region since the M-L = 5.0 swarm of 1908.
Characteristic features of the 2008 swarm are its short duration (4 weeks) and rapidity and, consequently, the fastest seismic moment release compared to previous swarms.