A Basel court acquitted on Monday afternoon a geologist accused of causing earthquakes there during prospecting for geothermal energy. The geologist on trial was the director of Geothermal Explorer, the company working on the project.

The quakes caused by the drilling caused hundreds of thousands of francs in damage. The scientist had called the chargest ludicrous.

The Basel government had been an eager backer of geothermal energy, but after the tremors, they decided it was too risky to continue.