Spain has purchased EUR 500,000 worth of seismometers to conduct feasibility studies for the Strait of Gibraltar tunnel project, a massive project estimated to cost anywhere between five to ten billion euros that would connect Morocco and Spain through an approximate 38-kilometer tunnel running under the Strait of Gibraltar.
Spanish company SECEGSA will use these advanced seabed seismic measuring devices to provide accurate data on seismic activity to assess risks and design a safe, sustainable tunnel.
In a 2014 study, the head of the Department of Geophysics and Meteorology at the Complutense University of Madrid, Elisa Buforn, said that there is a risk of earthquakes with a magnitude of 4 on the Richter scale at a depth of 40 kilometers in the region.
Buform suggested that future researchers should look into earthquakes “with magnitudes above 4 that occur in the area and to conduct a detailed analysis of the depths of the earthquakes analyzed,” Spanish news platform Vozpopuli reported.
In 2023, Spain hired the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) for nearly EUR 179,000 to conduct fixed-link studies across the Strait of Gibraltar to research the feasibility of the permanent tunnel that will link Europe and Africa.
Morocco’s joint hosting of the FIFA 2030 World Cup with Spain and the construction of high-speed railways have renewed interest in the project, which had not progressed passed the discussion phase since the plan was first conceptualized more than 40 years ago in 1979.
Current budget estimates for the new project that have been made public so far range from EUR 5 billion to EUR 10 billion.