Instrumentation of the Nigeria network of seismological stations

Abstract

“Living in fear of Nigeria biggest Earthquake” is a sub-heading of the Punch daily newspaper of Nigeria, dated, 21st of August, 2016, reported the earthquake/tremor recently witnessed in the ancient town of Saki, accompanied by a series of aftershock events that lasted for about three (3) months (March/May, 2016) southwest Nigeria[1]. Similarly, roughly five (5) years later, another series of earthquakes/tremors occurred again in Saki town, which was reported by an online news vendor named “Ripples Nigeria” dated September 8, 2021, under the sub-heading of “earth tremor rocks Saki in Oyo state”[2]. However, these events were not captured nor recorded by any of the functional seismological stations in Nigeria. The nearest seismological station located at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, also failed to capture the events. We therefore seek to examine the instrumentation of the Nigerian National Network of Seismographic Stations. This is necessary to understand the functionalities and the capabilities of the deployed seismometers in each of the seismic stations. Therefore, we evaluated the bandpass limit of the seismic wave frequency for the respective seismic stations in Nigeria through the computation of the amplitude-frequency response curve, phase response curve, and count to cm/sec.