Geologist acquitted

A Swiss court has acquitted a geologist accused of causing earthquakes while drilling deep into the ground in a pioneering attempt to produce clean energy.

The Basel criminal court said it acquitted Markus Haering because he had not deliberately damaged properties or acted carelessly on the heat mining project, which aimed to be the first to generate power commercially by boiling water on rocks three miles underground.

The project was put on hold in 2006 after the drilling accidentally triggered a series of tremors, including one of 3.4 magnitude, rattling residents of Basel.