Global Historical Earthquake Archive and Catalogue (1000-1903)
Creators: name: Albini, Paola
name: Musson, Roger M.W.
name: Gomez Capera, Antonio A.
name: Locati, Mario
name: Rovida, Andrea
name: Stucchi, Massimiliano
name: Viganò, Daniele
Publisher: name: GEM Foundation, Pavia, Italy
Year: 2013
Subjects: Earthquake history
Historical seismology
Archive
Catalogue
Tools
Hazard assessment
Risk assessment
GEM

description: GEM Technical Report 2013-01
description: GEM Technical Report 2013-01
description: Geological, Earthquake and Geophysical Data
description: In one sense, all seismology is the study of historical earthquakes. Earthquakes are short-lived phenomena; over within a couple of minutes at most, well before the seismologist can arrive on the scene. Every earthquake is history, albeit recent history, by the time it can be studied. This inability to observe an earthquake in real time has coloured the development of seismology as a science. In lieu of direct observation, scientists have been obliged to rely on secondary phenomena, or to put it another way, on traces left by the earthquake. These can be grouped into three: permanent marks left on the landscape, written descriptions of the effects of an earthquake, and the recordings made by instruments specifically designed to register the movement of the ground during an earthquake. These three different types of data are the three pillars on which seismological knowledge rests. The relative importance of these three data types in reconstructing the patterns of global seismicity varies over time. For the 20th century, instrumental data is the richest source of information on which a catalogue of earthquakes can be built. Before the 20th century, written descriptions take over as the primary data source, back as far as written history goes, after which geological data is the source of information for earthquakes in prehistoric time. It should be no surprise then, to someone introduced to the work of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM), to find three major subprojects on geological data (Faulted Earth), on historical information (Global Earthquake History), and instrumental data (Instrumental Earthquake Catalogue). This report is the output of two years of activity in the second of these, the Global Earthquake History (GEH). The study of earthquakes from historical sources, or historical seismology, was for many decades of the 20th century a neglected subject. It seemed to many seismologists of the period that all necessary information could be obtained from seismometers. The impulse to treat historical seismology more seriously came from the development of seismic hazard studies, beginning in the 1970s, when it was realised that understanding of earthquake recurrence required a longer time history than instrumental data could provide. The difficulty has been (and this is true of the period before 1970 as well) that the impulse to study historical earthquakes has come from seismologists, who naturally are trained in the physical sciences, whereas the study of historical records requires expertise from the social sciences. Many blunders have been committed in the past by physics-trained seismologists misinterpreting documents through a lack of the skills of the historian. The solution has been to recruit some seismologists with a social sciences background, and to interact directly with the community of professional historians. This has been facilitated in Europe by a series of international projects funded by the EU, which, by bringing together the specialists from different European countries, have strengthened links, and allowed the development of a mutually-supporting community of experts across the continent. In these projects, INGV has played a leading role, unsurprisingly given that Italy is the most seismically active country with the richest history in Europe. GEH exploits in a large degree the expertise gained in European projects over the last 25 years. Elsewhere in the world, the situation varies greatly, both in terms of the amount and types of material available for study, and the effort, past and present, put into retrieving and exploiting it. A global synthesis of the pre-20th century earthquake history of the world is therefore a huge challenge. In compiling an instrumental earthquake catalogue, one can take advantage of the fact that the basic materials, seismograms and bulletins, are international in nature, easily accessed and interpreted. A historical catalogue faces the problem that basic source materials are scattered and obscure, and in a plethora of different languages and scripts, while existing secondary studies vary hugely in quality and organisation. In some parts of the world it is easy to identify local experts with whom one can collaborate, in other places these do not even exist. With these constraints, a circumspect approach to GEH was necessary. The project has therefore been conceived in such a way as to provide both a snapshot of the status quo of historical seismology as it exists today across the globe, and also a framework for future initiatives, that will support further work to improve understanding of historical seismicity (much needed in some regions). The project is thus structured around three complementary deliverables: archive, catalogue and infrastructure. The Global Historical Earthquake Archive (GHEA) is the most important of the three, in providing a complete (so far as is possible) account of the global situation in historical seismology, with all existing studies of historical earthquakes collected together in a syncretised way, retrievable either by earthquake or region. It is truly a global survey of historical seismology as it exists at present. The Global Historical Earthquake Catalogue (GHEC) is a world catalogue of earthquakes for the period 1000-1903, with magnitude 7 Mw and over (less in some regions), derived from GHEA by a process of comparing the sets of parameters available for each earthquake and selecting the best-attested. This delivers to GEM the best global historical catalogue of large earthquakes presently available, with the best parameters selected, duplications and fakes removed, and in some cases, new earthquakes discovered. Finally, the infrastructure consists of web software that allows the archive and catalogue to be stored, maintained, displayed and interrogated in an intuitive way, by means of easy-to-use web GIS tools.
description: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................... i ABSTRACT ...................................................................... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................. iv LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................. vii LIST OF TABLES ................................................................. x 1 Global Historical Earthquake Archive (1000-1903) ............................. 1 1.1 Structure and contents of the Archive ...................................... 1 1.2 Macroseismic Data Points ................................................... 3 1.3 Fakes ...................................................................... 5 2 Analysis of the Archive Contents by Geographical Area........................ 26 2.1 A global perspective ...................................................... 26 2.2 The Americas .............................................................. 28 2.2.1 Canada and United States of America ..................................... 28 2.2.2 Mexico (excluding Chiapas) .............................................. 29 2.2.3 Central America and Chiapas ............................................. 30 2.2.4 Antilles ................................................................ 32 2.2.5 South America ........................................................... 33 2.3 Europe .................................................................... 36 2.4 North Africa .............................................................. 39 2.4.1 The Maghreb ............................................................. 39 2.4.2 Tunisia, Libya and western Egypt ........................................ 42 2.5 Sub-Saharan Africa ........................................................ 42 2.5.1 East Africa Rift ........................................................ 43 2.5.2 West African Craton ..................................................... 45 2.5.3 Earthquakes in south and south-western Africa and the Atlantic .......... 46 2.5.4 The wandering earthquake of 4 June 1903 ................................. 46 2.6 Turkey, the Middle East and Iran .......................................... 49 2.6.1 Central and Eastern Turkey .............................................. 49 2.6.2 The 17 August 1668 North Anatolia earthquake ............................ 51 2.6.3 The Dead Sea system, the Red Sea, Egypt, and Arabia ..................... 52 2.6.4 Iran and Iraq ........................................................... 54 2.7 Russia, Caucasus and Central Asia ......................................... 56 2.7.1 Russia .................................................................. 56 2.7.2 Caucasus ................................................................ 59 2.7.3 Central Asia ............................................................ 60 2.8 South Asia and the Himalayas .............................................. 61 2.8.1 Afghanistan and Pakistan ................................................ 61 2.8.2 Peninsular India and Bangladesh (excluding Himalayas) ................... 62 2.8.3 Northern India and the Himalaya ......................................... 64 2.9 China ..................................................................... 66 2.10 Japan and Korean peninsula ............................................... 70 2.10.1 Japan .................................................................. 70 2.10.2 Korean peninsula ....................................................... 73 2.11 South-East Asia and the Philippines ...................................... 75 2.11.1 South-East Asia excluding Burma ........................................ 75 2.11.2 Burma .................................................................. 78 2.11.3 Philippines ............................................................ 80 2.12 Indonesia ................................................................ 83 2.12.1 Data Sources ........................................................... 83 2.12.2 Parameters ............................................................. 84 2.12.3 Notes on New Earthquakes ............................................... 86 2.12.4 Discussion ............................................................. 88 2.13 Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific ............................. 89 2.13.1 Australia .............................................................. 90 2.13.2 New Zealand ............................................................ 92 2.13.3 South Pacific .......................................................... 96 2.13.4 The earthquake of 19 September 1902 .................................... 98 3 Global Historical Earthquake Catalogue (M≥7.0, 1000-1903) ................... 99 3.1 Strategy in Catalogue compilation ......................................... 99 3.2 The Catalogue ............................................................ 101 3.2.1 Earthquake parameters .................................................. 101 3.2.2 Format ................................................................. 106 3.3 Results .................................................................. 106 3.4 Improvements on previous catalogues ...................................... 109 4 Completeness of GHEC ....................................................... 118 4.1 Approach ................................................................. 118 4.2 Analysis ................................................................. 118 4.2.1 Alaska and the Pacific Northwest ....................................... 119 4.2.2 California ............................................................. 120 4.2.3 Mexico ................................................................. 120 4.2.4 Central America ........................................................ 121 4.2.5 Caribbean .............................................................. 121 4.2.6 South America .......................................................... 122 4.2.7 Europe ................................................................. 122 4.2.8 Middle East ............................................................ 123 4.2.9 Iran ................................................................... 124 4.2.10 Central Asia .......................................................... 124 4.2.11 India ................................................................. 125 4.2.12 China ................................................................. 125 4.2.13 Japan ................................................................. 126 4.2.14 Philippines ........................................................... 126 4.2.15 The Sunda Arc ......................................................... 127 4.2.16 The Moluccas .......................................................... 128 5 IT Infrastructure .......................................................... 129 5.1 Accessing the Archive .................................................... 129 5.1.1 General view ........................................................... 129 5.1.2 Detailed view .......................................................... 131 5.2 Technical solutions and standards ........................................ 134 5.2.1 Managing the Global Historical Earthquake Archive content .............. 135 5.2.2 Further notes on the macroseismic intensity data format ................ 137 5.2.3 The GEH website ........................................................ 139 6 Future Prospects for GEH ................................................... 140 REFERENCES ................................................................... 143 APPENDIX A Online Resources on Historical Earthquake Data ...................... I APPENDIX B Glossary.......................................................... XVII