JSO says it recorded more than 50 earthquakes in 2022

AMMAN — The Jordan Seismological Observatory (JSO) of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources on Saturday announced that it recorded 818 seismic activities in 2021 and more than 50 earthquakes in 2022.

The seismic activities included 78 local and 308 regional earthquakes, while 432 distant tremors were recorded, the majority of which were concentrated in the Pacific and Indian oceans, the JSO said, as reported by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

Jordan is located on the eastern edge of the Dead Sea fault, which extends from the Red Sea gulf to southern Turkey, stretching a distance of over 1,100 kilometres. 

The Levant region has been a seismically active region throughout history, mostly intangible. 

The observatory is the Kingdom’s sole official body that owns seismic monitoring devices. No official corporation, government or private university has seismic equipment, JSO President Ghassan Sweidan said.

Work is under way to prepare a seismic hazard study for the Petra region, as 50 per cent of the natural vibration points for the target area have been completed during 2021, he noted.

On expansion plans, he announced two new seismic monitoring stations that have been installed at Al Bayt University and in the Al Asha region on the northern border in Irbid, bringing the total number of seismic monitoring stations to 22 across the Kingdom, working round’ the clock throughout the year.

Sweidan said that the observatory detects, records and analyses local, regional and international seismic activities with the use of the latest global devices and technologies.