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The magnitude 3.6 earthquake that struck Cumbria was felt across surrounding areas, including parts of Scotland and Yorkshire. But the UK, like the rest of northern Europe, is relatively quiet seismically.

Data from the British Geological Survey (BGS) showed the location of the quake as Coniston, in Cumbria, 9km (5.6 miles) south-west of Ambleside and with a depth of 14.3km (8.9 miles).

A magnitude 3.6 earthquake is slight compared with the nine-plus magnitude quake that rocked Sumatra in 2004 and triggered the Boxing Day tsunami, or the magnitude 8.8 quake that struck Chile in February 2010.

The magnitude scales quoted by seismologists are not linear. Each step equates to a 30-fold increase in the release of energy - so magnitude nine is actually 800,000 times bigger than a magnitude five quake.

Also, the numbers do not give any indication of the damage caused. This will depend on many things: the number and quality of buildings close by, the nature of the soils on which they are built, etc.

For this reason, people living on either side of the street can have very different experiences. When someone says: "But I felt nothing", it may be explained simply by the construction used on their house.

There are 200-300 quakes in Britain every year. Most are so small that no-one notices them. Historical data suggests that earthquakes of the magnitude that hit Cumbria are likely to occur in the UK around once every year.

The largest recorded earthquake experienced in the UK occurred in 1931 and measured 6.1. The epicentre was Dogger Bank in the North Sea, and so the quake had little impact on the mainland.

The largest earthquakes in the world occur close to plate margins, areas of the Earth's upper layers that are being rammed together or pulled apart. Tremendous energy is released when these rocks break or grind past each other.

The UK lies well away from the world's tectonic hotspots, but these processes still play a role in the country's relatively small tremors.

Many of the quakes in the UK are clustered around an enormous block of rock known as the Midlands Microcraton. This is an ancient, Precambrian (older than 590 million years) feature that runs up through Birmingham towards the Potteries.

It is composed of harder rocks than those either side of it. Although the details are not well understood, it seems likely that, in response to tectonic pressures originating in the Atlantic (where the surface of the Earth is being pulled apart), those softer rocks on either side are disturbed.

There are a number of active faults that line the Midlands Microcraton, and many of the tremors experienced on the western side of the English Midlands, up to the Pennines, are a result of rocks jostling in this area.

Britain also feels the effects of earthquakes in the North Sea. Here, the crust is much thinner and it is also marked by large numbers of faults.

The earth beneath our feet is never completely static. The crust is constantly on the move. For example, much of the UK is still rebounding after the melting of the great mass of ice that covered the country thousands of years ago.

And even on a daily basis, the crust will move up and down by many millimetres as the tides roll around the island nation.

But, specifically, what can we say about the Cumbria quake?

Susan Potter, geophysicist at the US Geological Survey, said six earthquakes had been recorded within 50km of the latest one during the past 40 years. Of those, two have been of a magnitude of 3.7 - one in 1988 and another in 2009.

The British Geological Survey will be keen to hear from anyone who experienced the quake. It will be useful to know how strong the shaking was at different distances, measured in terms of the effects that people noticed - rattling windows, falling ornaments and so on.

Knowing the distance at which strong effects might occur in an earthquake is important for safety planning. Engineers at nuclear power stations, for example, need to understand how their plant may be affected by tremors.