Dear José,

the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) maintains a valuable catalogue of historical earthquakes. Please, find attached the url at the mentioned database and service.

Best,

—g

http://istituto.ingv.it/the-institute/databases/view?set_language=en

Many thanks for your answer to my question, Giuseppe.

I suppose you refer mainly to the SHARE European Earthquake Catalogue 1000-1999, maintained by INGV. I already have consulted it, in search for macroseismic data about portuguese earthquakes.

But should they accept macroseismic data not yet published, compiled by independent researchers, not afiliated to any university?

Again, "grazie".

José

Dear José, 

my apologies, I do not have any further updated information about INGV's statutory policies about not inventoried quakes' data coming from independent researchers. In this sense, my advice is to contact them directly.

Nevertheless, please have a look at this: AHEAD — the European Archive of Historical EArthquake Data, co-funded by the European Union and co-coordinated by a couple of INGV branches, where you could upload your datasets, annotations and comments. I'm attaching the url in the foot.

Cheers,

—g

http://www.emidius.eu/AHEAD/main/info/?en=95300&page=1

http://www.emidius.eu/AHEAD/new_material/

http://www.emidius.eu/AHEAD/main/

Besides the European sources, you can also take into account this source:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/

I have used a number of times for a couple of studies.

There is also a Japanese database on earthquakes (see link attached). For updates you can email at [email protected]. 

http://iisee.kenken.go.jp/utsu/index_eng.html

Dear Giuseppe and all

In fact, there is a number of on-line catalogues and datasets covering historical events.

By the way, in Portugal we have the IGIDL catalogue, covering Iberian Peninsula events.

Perhaps, I will follow Giuseppe's suggestion and submit to AHEAD some "new" XIX and even XX Portuguese and Spanish earthquakes, found by me and a colleague (Ana Paula Silva Correia), through scores of newspaper pages.

Many thanks for your valuable answers.

Dear José. Please do that. I reccomend you contact Romano Camassi at INGV Bologna or Paola Albini at INGV Milano.

On the fascinating and neverending topic of "unknown" earthquakes (i.e. those still not listed in any earthquake catalogue) you could find of some interest the following study:

Quaderni di Geofisica, 96 (2011) Materiali per un catalogo dei terremoti italiani: eventi sconosciuti, rivalutati o riscoperti, by Romano Camassi, Viviana Castelli, Diego Molin, Filippo Bernardini, Carlos Hector Caracciolo, Emanuela Ercolani, Luca Postpischl (downloadable here http://istituto.ingv.it/l-ingv/produzione-scientifica/quaderni-di-geofisica/archivio/copy2_of_quaderni-di-geofisica-2010/).

Dear José,

it is a very good idea to submit your data to one of the on-line databases (as suggested by Giuseppe Laquidara), but why don't you also try to publish these data as original research paper in one of seismological journals. It may help to attract more interest to your work.

Best wishes!

Dear José

There are several ways to take. However, I would start by including that event in the corresponding national historical seismicity catalogue, based on the center of intensity of such EQ. But I could have happened in international waters, and this first approach is useless. Second, as some colleagues before me have already mentioned, there are international initiatives of compiling historical EQ databases; one by INGV; others by the TERPRO Commission of INQUA if you have good and various envorionmental effects reported. If a large EQ, even the GEM Project could be interested in your discovery. I hope to have provided you with some insights!!!!!

Following another line of thinking, if your concern is to be recognized as the "discoverer", just publish it in an international reviewed journal. You have many many options: Annals of Geophysics, Geophysical Journal International, BSSA, Tectonophysics, JGR, among many others.....

Seismological Research Letters too. And yes, the best way to get inside a parametric earthquake catalogue would be to publish a study of the relevant earthquake, i.e. using the original data you found in newspapers to derive macroseismic information and intensity data points from them, reconstructing the earthquake and its impact and providing an intensity table for it/them. Earthquake catalogue compiler will then be able to use your study and your status as the discoverer of the data will be duly acknowledged. 

Yan, Franck and Viviana

I am very grateful for your suggestions and thinking better  maybe I (with my colleague, Ana Paula Correia) will follow the "research paper" way.

Some of these earthquakes are too relevant - we think - to remain forgotten in the old newspaper pages.

Then, you definitely MUST do it. I for one will eagerly wait for the outcome.

if this event is well documented, you can use it in your catalog. but should pay attention to its quality of location and magnitude

In the newspaper you can have sketchy idea about its tentative location and damage pattern undergone by surrounding localities. From this information it is really difficult to pinpoint the location and its intensity/magnitude. If by careful analysis, an intensity map either in MSK or MMI or MSK64 if prepared, it can help in assign the location and intensity of the earthquake. The same is definitely publishable to any good journal in international level dealing with palaeo-seismology. 

We have recently gone through hundreds, if not thousands of historical references from the past 400 years to earthquakes in Europe and the Americas as part of a specific search for pre- and co-seismic luminous phenomena, "earthquake lights". Our findings (with an extensive electronic supplement) are published in

Thériault, R., F. St-Laurent, F. Freund, and J. Derr (2014), Prevalence of Earthquake Lights Associated with Rift Environments, Seismological Research Letters, 85(1), 159-178.

My co-authors France St-Laurent and John Derr have most of the relevant information. Their contact addresses are given in the SRL paper

Dear Friedemann

Although I was not able to read the article published in SRL, I see from your profile that you are devoted to pre-earthquake phenomena.

I think (but I am not sure) that we also found in our newspaper searches several pre-earthquake phenomena, namely unusual animal behaviour.

If you are interested, we will take a look into our transcriptions and tell you what we found.

This is a fascinating issue, as it could be a tool for "earthquake prediction".

Dear José, if you send me your email address to [email protected], I can send you the SRL paper with electronic supplement. I'm also intensely interested in animal behavior and in fact collaborate with Vikktor Stolc who is looking a certain processes at the scale of individual biochemical reactions that could shed light on why and how animals react to pre-earthquake conditions.

Or by Dr Jean Vogt, the other "pillar" of modern historical seismology. I strongly recommend starting from a paper he wrote to explain the highlights and pitfalls of reasearching historical earthquakes to people not trained in historical research http://emidius.mi.ingv.it/RHISE/i_2vog/i_2vog.html

ics catalogue and USGS database can be good choises for getting info

this is the link

http://www.isc.ac.uk/iscbulletin/search/catalogue/

Dear José,

In addition to books and papers by Professor Nicolas Ambraseys and Dr. Jean Vogt, recommended by Fatih Bulut and Viviana Castelli, I can also recommend papers by Dr. Roger Musson, especially following works:

Musson R.M.W. 1986. The use of newspaper data in historical earthquake studies. Disasters 10 (3), 217–223. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7717.1986.tb00591.x.

Musson R.M.W. 1989. Accuracy of historical earthquake locations in Britain. Geological Magazine 126 (6), 685–689. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0016756800006981.

Musson R.M.W. 1996. Determination of parameters for historical British earthquakes. Annali di Geofisica 39 (5), 1041–1047. http://dx.doi.org/10.4401/ag-4035.

Musson R.M.W. 1998. Intensity assignments from historical earthquake data: Issues of certainty and quality. Annali di Geofisica 41 (1), 79–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.4401/ag-3795.

Musson R.M.W. 1998. Inference and assumption in historical seismology. Surveys in Geophysics 19 (2), 189–203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006502118523.

Best regards!

Dear Yan

Thank you very much for your list of paper from Dr. Roger Musson. I already heard about him, but I didn't have these references. Some of them are easy to download (Annali di Geofisica) and I have requested the others to him.

You, too, have been conducting a good work, concerning the gaps in the East Siberia seismic catalogues

Best regards!

It is a good question!

in order to guide you were to go, it would be more better to know the region that the historical data describing on, form this point many specialist are interested depending on the region, for example, I am interested in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

Best Regards

Dear José,

It is great if you have found a historical earthquake which is not refered in the database. For the portuguese database, you probably are aware of the Catalogo de sismicidade and there is also a compilation by Mendoza. There are some aspects you should consider in order to "test" if what you have discover corresponds in fact to an earthquake: sometimes, unfortunately is not  (I have that experience already...figuring out that they were describing something else, like landslides or so) Keep on mind that if it is an earthquake it should had been felt in a wide area, or if it is very  localised, then is probably an earthquake of a small magnitude and for that reason is not included in any database.  If you believe that it has a moderate magnitude, for the late XIX or early XX, there is a chance to find the instrumental record (not in Portugal but in other european countries) instrumental seismicity in Portugal exists since ~1910 (after Benavente quake). If you need any assistance, please let me know.

Dear Paula

Thank you for pointing out these questions. We are also aware of possible phenomena that may be mistaken for earthquakes.

But please have a look at some of the portuguese earthquakes that we have discovered and disclosed in the last years:

- 2 july 1858 (in "Alguns sismos inéditos ocorridos em Portugal e Galiza entre Junho e Agosto de 1858", available from RG), felt in almost all the northern half or Portugal.

- 4 august 1902 (in "Sismos portugueses do início do século XX (1901-1920)", available from RG and from PORTAL CASA DAS CIÊNCIAS), felt from Porto to Setúbal.

- 15 june 1936 (in "Contributo para o estudo dos sismos sentidos no Minho em 1932 e 1936", available from RG), felt in great part of the Braga and Viana do Castelo districts of Northern Portugal.

Nevertheless, as far as we know, none of them is present in earthquake catalogues, Portuguese or even Iberian.

Technical Report Alguns sismos inéditos ocorridos em Portugal e Galiza entre ...

Technical Report Contributo para o estudo dos sismos sentidos no Minho em 1932 e 1936

thank you, José for letting me know of these quakes. Concerning the 1858 series, I have the idea that Vilanova has already made an analysis on it, despite the fact that she focus on the Moncorvo one (the main shock). The other ones are interesting. I would suggest to search for other ways to calculate magnitudes based on intensities reports, considering local effects amplifications for instance. This might change the magnitude estimated.  

Dear Paula

Did you know if Susana Vilanova put the epicenter of the 2 july 1858 quake in the Vilariça fault, as was the case of the 19 march 1858 earthquake?

We are right about the estimates of the magnitudes, but as you noticed in our original studies of the 15 june 1936 and 2 july 1858 quakes, made in 2004 and 2007, respectively, we only made very rough estimates.

Today - and that was the case of our study of the 4 august 1902 earthquake - we deal with the Bakun and Wentworth method, which seems to us a much more valuable way to get both magnitude and epicenter location estimates.