AfricaArray programme

Professor Durrheim installing seismic equipment

HOORC's library has a visit this week from Professor Ray Durrheim of University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, who is installing a broadband seismograph at HOORC as part of the AfricaArray network. AfricaArray is a collaborative research and training programme founded by Wits University, Pennsylvania State University and the South African Council for Geoscience with partners throughout Africa, including the University of Botswana and the Botswana Geological Survey. The southern African region has unusually high topographic elevation -- the African superswell, and deep in the earth's mantle there is a large seismic velocity anomaly-- the African superplume. The programme is looking at these features to determine if there is a connection between them. Data collected by the programme is archived by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) in the United States. In HOORC's Library, you can find the FAO/UNDP 1975 publication, Seismicity, tectonics and seismic hazard of the Okavango Delta by Christopher Scholtz.