October 9, 2024 The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources signed a usufruct agreement with the University of Jordan to establish and organize the work of a seismic monitoring station on the campus of the University of Jordan, Aqaba branch, for a renewable period of 5 years.

The agreement stipulated that the Jordanian Seismic Observatory affiliated with the Ministry be granted a plot of land with an area of 60 meters to build a seismic activity monitoring station in the Aqaba region.

According to the Director of the Seismic Observatory, "Ghassan Sweidan," the importance of the station that will be established based on the agreement comes from the fact that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is one of the countries with seismic activity and is located on the western borders of the Arabian Plate, known for its modern and historical seismic activity, as Aqaba Governorate is considered one of the Jordanian cities close to seismic activity and one of the promising cities with urban expansion.

Suwaidan pointed out that the total number of agreements signed with universities in this regard reached 5 agreements, stressing that the observatory aims to build safe environmental stations far from the effects that occur on the Earth's surface and that this goal is achieved by universities.

Suwaidan added that the agreements contribute to students benefiting from the seismic observatory's services and the information it collects, which constitute a basic pillar for researchers to build on in their studies from the only entity in the Kingdom that provides this service.

It is worth mentioning that the number of seismic observation stations distributed across the regions of the Kingdom has reached 23 seismic observation stations, which continuously send signals to the observatory center in Amman throughout the year