Past and Future of Historical Seismicity Studies in France - Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes - page 134

and errata that make their use a little tedious. For this reason, we have created
modified catalogues containing the original annual catalogues appended with all
published supplements and errata, making it easier to access all mentions of a given
earthquake.

5 Conclusion

Since 1975, unlike neighbouring countries, French Universities and public research
organisms like the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) have not
developed any major project related to historical seismicity and seismic hazard. Al-
though the BCSF performs quality macroseismic enquiries of contemporary events
with magnitude larger than 3.5, that it publishes in its Observations Sismologiques
volumes, it does not investigate historical earthquakes. The SisFrance database re-
mains the unique French historical seismicity database. SisFrance developed within
a non-academic environment: from its source in 1975 until 2002, it was not open
to academic research. It is owned today by BRGM, IRSN 5 (a former Institute of
the CEA, independent since 2002), and EDF. Since 2002, a subset of the database
is available on the Internet (SisFrance 2008), but with strong copyright constraints.
This policy seems questionable, since the database includes the catalogue of Jean-
Pierre Rothe, a direct product of Rothe's work as a University Professor in Stras-
bourg. Nevertheless, SisFrance provides us today with an invaluable catalogue and
a vast reference list of French historical earthquakes.
Other isolated research initiatives in French historical seismicity were performed
recently by individuals, private associations (AFPS, APS, etc.), or occasionally by
university research groups. It is clear that the French seismicity would deserve
a much larger effort from the academic research community, and should not be
forced to rely entirely on the database of nuclear-industry-supported organizations.
There is a need for a future large research programme, as was the industry-oriented
Seismo-Tectonic Project of the 1970s. Such an interdisciplinary programme should
address many issues from historical seismicity to seismic hazard. For this project,
several sets of data are available, particularly in Strasbourg, including the BCSF
macroseismic enquiries, Rothe's archives, historical seismograms and seismic bul-
letins. Hopefully, this project would also take advantage of the huge collection of
unexploited original documents gathered in the last twenty years worldwide by Jean
Vogt (Frechet and Albini 2008).

Appendix 1

Vizille earthquake, 18 February 1909: newspapers articles.

L aRepublique de l'Isere , 19/02/1909, n ◦ 2907
St-Georges-de-Commiers, 18 fevrier. Une assez violente secousse de tremblement
de terre, precedee d'un bruit sourd et rapide, s'est produite ce matin, vers dix heures

5

Institut de Radioprotection et de Suret´eNucleaire