Historical Earthquake Catalogues
Humans have always viewed earthquakes as extremely threatening, arousing feelings of absolute helplessness. Earthquakes occur with unexpected suddenness and destruction, despite their short duration.
Seismology is still far from being able to reliably forecast earthquakes. For this reason, efforts are focused at the present time on inventorying past and present earthquakes and statistically assessing the probability of earthquakes of a given intensity at a given location. This information can be used to draft building regulations designed to avoid or reduce earthquake damage.
Besides a knowledge of the geological history of the region and the tectonic conditions, earthquake catalogues are a prerequisite for such a statistical analysis. Such catalogues of seismic events should be as complete as possible and cover a wide area and a long period of time. However, the period of time covered by seismographic records is too short to study earthquake history. This is the reason that research is done on pre-seismograph earthquakes. Written records of the effects of earthquakes are collected and evaluated, and earthquake parameters, such as location of the epicenter and epicentral intensity, are determined. The results of these studies are compiled in computerized earthquake catalogues, for example the catalogue for the Federal Republic of Germany which starts with the year AD 800.
The following earthquake catalogues have been compiled by BGR, partly on behalf of the EU, in cooperation with seismologists from other institutions in Germany and abroad:
- Federal Republic of Germany and adjacent areas from 800 AD
- EU (as of 1990) plus Switzerland and Austria (500 BC - 1981)
- Central and southeastern Europe (342 BC - 1990)
- Former Soviet Union (500 BC - 1988)
- Ghana (1615 - 2003)
These catalogues permit information on the seismic events in an area to be obtained quickly. They are used by BGR to assess seismic hazard. To design buildings so that they withstand the impact of earthquakes, assumptions are made about the seismic loads, taking into consideration the amplification by the soil.
The actual version of the German Earthquake Catalogue from the year 800 inclusive explanations as well as the other catalogues listed above with their reports are available as ZIP-files. Please click on the interesting catalogue above and you will come to the associated page with the possibility to download the data you wish.
Germany has been divided into relatively small areas on the basis of seismicity and geology, allowing automatic assignment of an earthquake to a named region (Seismogeographical regionalisation of Germany).
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