Compiling the 'Global Earthquake History' (1000-1903)

The study of historical earthquakes from historical sources, or historical seismology, is of wider interest than just the seismic hazard and risk community. In the scope of the two-year project (October 2010-March 2013) "Global Earthquake History", developed in the framework of GEM, a reassessment of world historical seismicity was made, from available published studies. The scope of the project is the time window 1000-1903, with magnitudes 7.0 and above. Events with lower magnitudes are included on a case by case, or region by region, basis. The Global Historical Earthquake Archive (GHEA) provides a complete account of the global situation in historical seismology. From GHEA, the Global Historical Earthquake Catalogue (GHEC, v1, available at http://www.emidius.eu/GEH/, under Creative Commons licence) was derived, i.e. a world catalogue of earthquakes for the period 1000-1903, with magnitude 7 and over, using publically-available materials, as for the Archive. This is intended to be 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. GHEA and GHEC are conceived as providing a basis for co-ordinating future research into historical seismology in any part of the world, and hopefully, encouraging new historical earthquake research initiatives that will continue to improve the information available.