Central Idea

A devastating earthquake struck Morocco, resulting in significant casualties and damage.

Details of the Moroccan Earthquake

Shallow Epicenter: The quake’s epicentre was near the town of Ighil, approximately 70 km southwest of Marrakech. It was considered fairly shallow, with varying depth estimates.
Higher Energy: Shallow earthquakes are typically more dangerous as they carry more energy, making them more destructive compared to deeper quakes.

Tectonic Convergence: The earthquake resulted from the northward convergence of the African plate with the Eurasian plate along a complex plate boundary.
Faulting: The USGS attributed the quake to oblique-reverse faulting at a shallow depth within the Moroccan High Atlas Mountain range.
Fault Classification: Oblique-slip faults exhibit characteristics of both dip-slip and strike-slip faults, occurring in areas of compression where tectonic plates converge.

Low Seismicity: Earthquakes are uncommon in North Africa, with low seismicity rates along the northern margin of the continent.
Historic Strength: This earthquake was the strongest ever recorded in the mountainous region, catching Morocco unprepared for such an event.
Construction Vulnerabilities: Many Moroccan buildings, especially in rural areas and older cities, are not constructed to withstand strong tremors.

An earthquake is an intense shaking of the ground caused by movement under the earth’s surface.
It happens when two blocks of the earth suddenly slip past one another.
This releases stored-up ‘elastic strain’ energy in the form of seismic waves, which spreads through the earth and cause the shaking of the ground.

morocco earthquake

As we know, the earth’s outermost surface, crust, is fragmented into tectonic plates.
The edges of the plates are called plate boundaries, which are made up of faults.
The tectonic plates constantly move at a slow pace, sliding past one another and bumping into each other.
As the edges of the plates are quite rough, they get stuck with one another while the rest of the plate keeps moving.
Earthquake occurs when the plate has moved far enough and the edges unstick on one of the faults.
The location below the earth’s surface where the earthquake starts are called the hypocenter, and the location directly above it on the surface of the earth is called the epicentre.