Another rogue quake which struck Botswana yesterday becoming the fourth since April has become quite a quite a mystery!
Botswana has been rocked by yet another earthquake, a fourth one in a space of five months.
A 4.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the diamond rich nation at 2:37 a.m. GMT Saturday morning in Gaborone, Botswana's capital city and the surrounding areas.
The reverberation occurred some ten kilometres below the surface, meaning the tremor would have felt stronger than the magnitude suggests.
In early April, two earthquakes measuring 6.5 and 5.0 in a space of two days, rocked the southern African nation's central parts, just 210 kilometers north of the capital.
On July 5, 2017, the United States Geological Survey international earthquake tracking centre confirmed readings of an 4.9 magnitude earthquake that hit central Botswana.
Jeff Ramsay, the Botswana government's spokesperson confirmed the Saturday morning earthquake that has been also felt in areas in the capital's radius of within 200km.
"The epicentre of the earthquake is the capital.
However, the aftershocks of the fourth earthquake in a space of five months were felt in areas like Mahalapye, Kanye, Lobatse and Mochudi," the government's spokesperson told Xinhua in a telephone interview.
Botswana has a population of around 2 million and around 10 percent of its population lives in the capital city.
A strange place for a major quake to occur I don’t ever remember reporting a major quake anywhere near here before except for the mag 6.5 in April, there is also no region summary or history available for this location on USGS which would suggest the area has no history of major quakes, or minor quakes for that matter.
Why is it called a rogue quake?
Quite simply because the major quake struck more than 2,000 miles away in any direction from a major fault line.
Secondly there is almost no previous history of quake activity in Botswana large or small, you have to go all the way back to April 2002 when a mag 4.5 struck 150 km from Gaborone and even further back to February 1993 when a mag 4.3 struck 120 km from Gaborone
So what could have caused the rogue quake?
An eagle eyed Gary W. Long sent me link on my Facebook page suggesting the quake could have been caused by fracking, I have posted a snippet below dated , 2nd of December 2015.
Botswana sells fracking rights in national park
Licences for more than half of the Kgalagardi Tran frontier park, one of Africa’s largest conservation areas, have been granted to drill for shale gas
The Botswana government has quietly sold the rights to frack for shale gas in one of Africa’s largest protected conservation areas, it has emerged.
The Kgalagardi trans frontier park, which spans the border with South Africa, is an immense 36,000 sq. km wilderness, home to gemsbok desert antelope, black-manned Kalahari lions and pygmy falcons. But conservationists and top park officials – who were not informed of the fracking rights sale – are now worried about the impact of drilling on wildlife.
Prospecting licences for more than half of the park were granted to a UK-listed company called Nodding Donkey in September 2014, although the sale has not been reported previously. That company changed its name earlier this month to Karoo Energy.
Link to full storyLast week another quake in a strange area...
Earthquakes in strange places: A shallow powerful mag 5.1 downgraded by USGS shakes the second largest meteorite crater in the world
An earthquake initially measuring greater than magnitude 5 on the Richter scale has been recorded near the famous Wolfe Creek Crater in Western Australia - the second largest meteorite crater in the world.
According to GeoScience Australia, the quake struck in the extremely remote area of the vast state near Sturt Creek, close to Northern Territory border, around 12.21pm AWST (2.21pm AEST). Preliminary information has the tremor measuring in at a strong magnitude 5.1.
This, however, is likely to be either downgraded or upgraded once all data has been analysed. GeoScience Australia estimates that the quake could have felt by people up to 187km away and could have caused damage within a 15km radius.
The quake, however, is unlikely to have caused any damage or injury, given its extremely remote location.
The Wolfe Creek Crater and tiny outback town of Sturt Creek, home to around 500 residents, featured in the 2005 Australian horror movie, Wolf Creek and again in its sequel, released in 2014.
