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BRGM, 2 CEA, 3 and EDF. 4 Very quickly Jean Vogt realized that French historical
seismicity needed a profound revision through a retour aux sources . Within a few
years, above all between 1976 and 1977, he and a small number of collaborators
performed an intensive gleaning of original and new sources. Systematic scrutiny
of hundreds of periodicals and newspapers, visits to countless archive depositories
and libraries throughout France led to a completely renewed knowledge of French
historical seismicity (Vogt 1979; Vogt 2003; Frechet and Albini 2008). This work
soon gave birth to a computer database (Sirene), partly available since 2002 on the
Internet under the name of SisFrance (SisFrance 2008). After Vogt's retirement in
1984, emphasis was focussed on the improvement of the computer database and its
parameterization, to the detriment of seeking new sources (Vogt 2003).
3 Improving the Knowledge of French Historical Seismicity
3.1 Recent Developments
For twenty years after his retirement in 1984, Jean Vogt continued his permanent
gleaning and deciphering of new sources, above all in the Upper Rhine region
(Frechet and Albini 2008). His method was based on several techniques, includ-
ing systematic perusal of periodicals and newspapers, search of administrative-,
notarial-, and family-archives, or investigation of neighbouring countries' libraries
and archives. He accumulated countless notes, copies, citations, and references in
his personal seismic files stored in more than 50 archive boxes containing data
on earthquakes in France and surrounding regions. He published his findings in
numerous notes, through international journals, or local learned society bulletins,
e.g. no less than 62 notes on the Upper Rhine region from 1985 to 2005 (Frechet
2007a). His achievement shows that a large amount of information on French his-
torical earthquakes lies concealed in libraries and archival depositories. Most of his
findings remain untapped, stored in the Archives Departementales and EOST depots
in Strasbourg (Frechet and Albini 2008).
Another recent initiative was the imposing work of Gregory Quenet in collab-
oration with the BRGM and CEA Projet . In his topic on earthquakes in the XVII
and XVIII centuries, Quenet presents an extensive study of the 1708 Manosque
(Provence, France) earthquake (Quenet 2005). He was able to gather an impressive
number of new sources. His genealogical analysis of available sources (Fig. 4 in
his topic) is a convincing demonstration of what exhaustiveness of sources means,
making the Manosque earthquake probably the best studied in France. Several other
scattered works were published, that are related to French historical earthquakes,
but they usually missed open access to the Sirene database (e.g. Camelbeeck et al.
2000; Lacassin et al. 2001; Meghraoui et al. 2001).
2
Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Minieres
3
Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique
4
Electricite de France
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