A NEW fault line has been found in the Alborán Sea by members of Spain's High Council of Scientific Research (CSIC).
As part of their ongoing marine geophysics studies on board the craft Hespérides in May 2016, the CSIC's data have finally been analysed and revealed a potential earthquake zone in the south-eastern sea between the province of Almería and the Spanish-owned enclave of Melilla on the northern Moroccan coast, close to the Algerian border.
The fault line lies along the point where the Eurasian and African tectonic plates meet in the westernmost point of the Mediterranean and is thought to continue as far as the shores of Morocco, following the arc of Gibraltar between the Iberian peninsula and Africa towards the west, and also northwards, affecting the Campo de Dalias region of the province of Almería.
Until now, the main fault line the CSIC was aware of was the Al-Idrisi.
After gathering information during the Hespérides explorations, the CSIC used geophysical instruments to test for the presence of a tectonic fault.
They say very little visible deformity was noticeable on the sea bed, but that the fault had been responsible for earthquakes of 'relatively high magnitudes'.
These include the tremor on January 25, 2016 just north of Melilla which reached 6.3 on the Richter scale and was felt across Andalucía, as well as causing chunks to fall off buildings in the north African enclave.
It has also been found to have caused two other high-magnitude earthquakes a decade apart – the first, in 1994, reached 6.1 on the Richter scale and the second, at 6.3, hit the Al-Hoceima area of Morocco some 100 kilometres west of Melilla in 2004, causing over 600 deaths.
Quakes before and since, even where they were of a high magnitude, have mainly been out to sea and a long way down, reducing their severity and not resulting in deaths or mass devastation.
The research – the results of which have been published in the geology magazine Tectonics – involved significant input from the universities of Granada, Jaén, the Sorbonne in Paris, and three in Morocco, being the Mohammed V-Agdal in Rabat, the Abdelmalek Essaadi in Tetouan and the Mohammed Premier in Oudja, barely 10 kilometres from the Algerian border, together with the Spanish Institutes of Hydrography, Oceanography, Geology, and the Naval Observatory in San Fernando (Madrid).
Data from the National Geographical Institute (IGN) were used to trace the fault line based upon earthquake statistics.
The above picture, by the IGN, shows the epicentre of the May 2016 earthquake in the Alborán Sea.
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