Review of Historical Earthquakes in the Lower Middle Ages: Earthquakes of the XIV and XV Centuries in Catalonia (NE Spain) - Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes - page 140

Review of Historical Earthquakes in the Lower
Middle Ages: Earthquakes of the XIV and XV
Centuries in Catalonia (NE Spain)
C. Olivera, E. Redondo, J. Lambert, A. Riera-Melis and A. Roca
Abstract In 1985 the Geological Survey of Catalonia started a project to compile
a comprehensive catalogue of seismic activity in Catalonia in order to provide a
correct evaluation of seismic hazard. The project concludes with the publication, in
2006, of a topic that gathers the results of the interdisciplinary work carried out on
the most important historical earthquakes in Catalonia, which took place in the XIV
and XV centuries.
One of the most prominent features of this monograph is that it provides a com-
pilation of all the documentation concerning the earthquakes of the late medieval
period. For the first time it has been possible to undertake a joint analysis of all the
documentation of the earthquakes of the late medieval period in Catalonia and to
evaluate these events using homogeneous criteria.
In this paper some methodological aspects of this research are discussed and the
main results are given.
A catalogue of the earthquakes of the XIV and XV centuries has been compiled.
From this catalogue it can be deduced that the earthquake with the greatest intensity,
IX, occurred on 2 February 1428 (M w about 6.5). The second largest earthquake
occurred on 3 March 1373, with an epicentral intensity of VIII-IX (M w about 6.2).
1 Introduction
A number of large earthquakes occurred in Catalonia (NE of the Iberian Peninsula)
during the XIV and XV centuries, some of them producing important damages.
The existence of contemporary sources of the late medieval period in Catalonia
allows us to study these earthquakes in more detail. The good state of preservation
of old documents and the wealth of description of the events have enabled us to
make a reliable reconstruction of these events.
Despite some sporadic attempts to compile reports of earthquakes in the XVII
century, it was not until the XIX century that cataloguing of earthquakes were