In August 2020, seismic activity began in Antarctica and subsided by November of that year.

Scientists considered this seismic activity, which was recorded with a total of 85,000 earthquakes, to be the strongest ever in Antarctica.

And new research published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, published on April 11, suggests that these earthquakes were caused by a "column" of magma that penetrated the Earth's crust.

Earthquakes are not the main cause of King George Island's displacement (Getty Images)

Subduction of tectonic plates and seismic faults

According to a report published by Live Science, study co-author Simon Siska, a seismologist at the German GFZ Research Center for Earth Sciences in Potsdam, told the site that "there have been events in which magma penetrates into the Earth's crust in other places on the planet, but this is the first time we've observed it there."

"These processes usually occur over geological timescales that are of course different from the estimated lifespan of humans, which makes us fortunate to have been able to witness this event," he added.

The seismic activity occurred around Orca, an inactive volcano 900 meters above the sea floor in the Bransfield Strait, a narrow passage between the South Shetland Islands and the northwestern tip of Antarctica.

According to a study published in 2018 in the journal Polar Science, the immersion of the Phoenix tectonic plate under the Antarctic continental plate causes a network of faults in separate places in this region.

Volcanic magma is the main cause of the dramatic transformation of the Earth on King George Island (Getty Images)

The effect of earthquakes and volcanic magma

Scientists at research stations on King George Island - a remote South Shetland island with only two seismic stations nearby - were the first to feel the intensity of small earthquakes.

To measure the displacement of the Earth caused by earthquakes, the researchers used data from two ground stations of the Global Navigation System via satellite, in addition to the data of the two monitoring stations from King George Island.

The study's authors reported that they also used data from remote seismic stations and from Earth-orbiting satellites that use radar to measure ground-level change.

The team reported that the nearby stations were relatively simple, but they were good for detecting the smallest earthquakes.

Meanwhile, more sophisticated remote stations have helped paint a more detailed picture of major earthquakes.

Siska said that putting this data together enabled the team to build a picture of the underlying geology that caused the massive earthquakes.

The ground on King George Island moved about 11 centimeters (Getty Images)

The two largest in the series were a 5.9-magnitude quake in October 2020 and a 6.0-magnitude quake in November, thus waning seismic activity.

The study found that the land on King George Island has moved about 11 centimeters.

The researchers suggest that only 4% of this displacement can be directly explained by the earthquake, and that the movement of magma in the crust is largely responsible for this dramatic transformation of the Earth.