Geology

Mountains

In the northern part, the major relief is Jebel el Hadid which has an altitude of about 659 m. It is composed of Jurassic limestone.

Hanno the Navigator (500 BC) exploited iron deposit in Jbel Hadid.

The Meskala fields

"The Oxfordian shale was sufficiently buried in western Essaouira to generate voluminous gas and condensate liquids, and to expel them into structurally closed Jurassic reservoirs (Toukimt field) or offset horst-block Triassic reservoirs (Meskala field). Geochemical evidence suggests that the Jurassic-age reservoirs across the eastern Essaouira basin host commingled gases sourced from Jurassic and Carboniferous strata. Coal methane, generated from a deeply buried Carboniferous interval, may have been the main source for the astern Essaouira basin. Traps developed as structures draping salt domes at junctions of offset transtensive faults."

Hydrocarbon Generation in the Essaouira Basin of Western Morocco - Paul Broughton , Andre Trepanier AAPG Bulletin

Sandy soils at the coastal strip of Essaouira Province and inlands Red soils of the mountain forest, eroded with limestone surface in assocoation with humus-carbonate (rendzina) soil and in cracks Paleozoic granite. Evergreen woods of Thuja Tetraclinis and Argania Spinosa

 

The 1960 Agadir earthquake
took place on February 29, 1960, at 23:40 local time.
It was the most destructive and deadliest earthquake in Moroccan history with a magnitude of 5.7 Mw, killing around 15,000 people (about a third of the city's population of the time) and wounding another 12,000. At least 35,000 people were left homeless.