Western Sahara

Western Sahara occupies a stretch of the northwestern African coast between Morocco and Mauritania, sitting on the West African craton and the passive margin of the central Atlantic Ocean. The territory is geologically stable: it lies far from any active plate boundary, and the crust beneath it is ancient Precambrian basement overlain by Paleozoic sedimentary sequences and Mesozoic coastal basin deposits. The passive Atlantic margin was created when North America separated from Africa approximately 180 million years ago, and it has been tectonically quiet ever since. Western Sahara experiences very little natural seismicity as a consequence.

The northern part of the territory — closest to Morocco — is marginally influenced by the diffuse Africa-Eurasia collision zone that generates seismicity in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria. However, this influence diminishes rapidly southward, and most of Western Sahara is effectively aseismic in the instrumental record. No historically documented earthquake has caused significant damage or casualties within the territory. Occasional low-magnitude events detected by regional networks near the border with Morocco represent the southernmost fringe of Atlas tectonics.

The Atlantic passive margin offshore generates occasional minor [[seismic-wave]] signals from sediment loading, salt diapirism, and ancient buried faults, but these are not felt at the surface. [[tsunami]] hazard from distant North Atlantic or Caribbean sources is theoretically present but extremely low given the open, shallow shelf geometry of this coast. The territory's long, exposed coastline and sparse population mean that preparedness infrastructure is limited. Geologically, Western Sahara is one of the quietest tectonic environments on the continent.