Lower Rhine Graben
Germany / Netherlands / Belgium · continental rift · 1375.0 km of mapped active fault in 15 traces
unknown as of 7 November 2026.
no baseline good enough to compare against; the catalogue holds too few events on this system to say what normal is
| Window | the last 30.0 days |
|---|---|
| Earthquakes counted | 0 at M4.5 or above |
| Expected in that window | 0.00 |
What this system normally does
From 1995 to 2025 the catalogue holds 2 earthquakes of M4.5 or larger attributable to this system: about 0.07 a year. That figure is what "elevated" on this page is measured against.
Confidence in that rate is low: the catalogue holds too few events here for the average to carry much weight, and this system is never called elevated on the strength of it alone.
The fault itself
| Mapped length | 1375.0 km |
|---|---|
| Traces | 15 |
| Tectonic setting | continental rift |
| Slip types | Normal, Dextral-Normal, Sinistral-Normal |
| Depth attributed to it | down to 50.0 km |
| Extent | 50.59 to 51.91 latitude, 4.74 to 7.04 longitude |
Recorded history
NOAA's hazard records hold 2 significant earthquakes attributed to this system since 1992.
The deadliest was the 13 April 1992 magnitude 5.2 earthquake (the Netherlands: Roermond; Germany: Bonn, Heinsberg), which killed one person.
The most recent entry is the 22 July 2002 magnitude 4.8 earthquake (Germany: Aachen, Cologne, Spangdahlem).
| Date | What | Where | Toll |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 April 1992 | magnitude 5.2 earthquake | the Netherlands: Roermond; Germany: Bonn, Heinsberg | 1 dead, $100 million damage |
| 22 July 2002 | magnitude 4.8 earthquake | Germany: Aachen, Cologne, Spangdahlem | damage under $1 million |
A dash means NOAA recorded no number, not that nobody died. Older entries are fewer because fewer were written down, not because less happened.
Recorded history: NOAA NCEI hazard databases, public domain, retrieved 2026-10-22.
Who to listen to if you live here
BBK, Federal Office of Civil Protection is the agency that tells people on this system what to do. https://www.bbk.bund.de/ (in German)
Where these numbers come from
Fault geometry, length and segment counts: GEM Global Active Faults Database (GEM GAF-DB), GEM Foundation, https://github.com/GEMScienceTools/gem-global-active-faults Licence: CC-BY-SA-4.0. Figures derived from it here are offered under the same licence. Earthquake counts, magnitudes and depths: United States Geological Survey, public domain. The activity judgement is ours, computed from those two inputs, and is not a statement by either agency.