Abstract
Though Ghana is far away from the major earthquake zones of the world, it is prone to earthquake disaster. Ghana has records of damaging earthquakes dating as far back as 1615. The last three major events occurred in 1862, 1906 and 1939. This paper presents the main historical and current instrumental recorded earthquakes of Ghana and the steps being taken to mitigate the negative effects of such disastrous occurrences in the country. The discussion is based on historical and current data obtained from the seismological observatories in Accra and Kukurantumi. Historical earthquakes of magnitude greater than 6.0 and current local tremors with magnitudes ranging from 1.0 to 4.8 on the Richter scale have been recorded since the establishment of the seismograph stations.
Highlights
Ghana is located on the southeastern margin of the West Africa craton and is far away from the major earthquake zones that mark the present day lithospheric plate boundaries
About two thirds of the land surface of Ghana is covered by Birimian rocks that are of paleoproterozoic age
Ambraseys and Adams (1986) studied the seismicity of West Africa, which included the history of earthquakes in Ghana
Summary
Ghana is located on the southeastern margin of the West Africa craton and is far away from the major earthquake zones that mark the present day lithospheric plate boundaries. A number of major and minor earthquakes have struck the country in past and present. Earth tremors of magnitude ranging from 1.0 to 4.8 on the Richter scale have been recorded in recent times Instrumental recording of earthquakes in Ghana began in 1914 when the colonial government installed a Milne’s single-boom seismograph in the country. It operated until 1933 when it ceased recording (Banson, 1970) due to financial constraints. Several minor shocks were recorded during the period when the seis-
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