Minor earthquake reported in Oman

Muscat: Mild tremors of magnitude between 2.5 and 3.4 on the Richter’s scale were reported by the Earthquake Monitoring Centre at Sultan Qaboos University (EMCSQ) yesterday at 11:23am and 8:34pm.

The morning quake was reported at Jalan Bani, which is 125 km from Sur town and had a magnitude of 3.4 while the evening one was reported 17 km from Diba and was off shore, with a magnitude of 2.5 on Richter’s scale. The shake map report however did not mention any significant alerts on account of these tremors.

Prior to this, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake happened in the Owen Fracture Zone region, west of Gulf of Oman at a depth of 28 km on April 24. The authorities were quick to dismiss a Tsunami threat via a notice issued by Oman’s Civil Aviation Authority.

Fault line

The Owen Fracture Zone (OFZ), is a transform fault line in the northwest Indian Ocean that separates the Arabian and African Plates from the Indian Plate. Oman is a part of the Arabian plate, which comprises the continent of Arabia as well as oceanic areas consisting of parts of the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden and Gulf of Oman.

Oman reported a fair share of mild tremors during 2020 that were monitored and reported by the country’s premier monitoring centre Earthquake Monitoring Centre at Sultan Qaboos University (EMCSQ).

A quake of 5.3 magnitude was reported in December 415 km away from Salalah in Arabian Sea, apart from a series of tremors with lesser magnitude that were reported between August and November 2020 in various places including Khasab and Bahla. However, none of the quakes resulted in any human loss or damage to structures.