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 154

8 Conclusions

The results of this study have been reached through a rigorous review of primary
documentary sources and to a critical analysis of such sources in its historical
context taking extreme care of the chronological aspects given that sequences of
earthquakes occurred in the studied period.
Uncertainties associated to the epicentral coordinates and intensities for the Mid-
dle Ages earthquakes studied here are, as usual in macroseismic studies, difficult to
assess and this may seem to be a handicap claimed by some seismologists. However,
the rich descriptions encountered in this study, the large amount of documentation
used and the rigorous methodology followed by the interdisciplinary team working
in this topic for years of extensive and intensive research, guarantee the reliability
of the results achieved.
The revision carried out yields to a new catalogue for the study period that in-
cludes 8 events with epicentral intensity larger than VI (EMS-98). Table 2 show the
macroseismic parameters of these events. The most important earthquakes of the
period studied are those of 1428 and 1373, with epicentral intensity IX and VIII-IX,
respectively.
The two most destructive earthquakes of the sequence of 1427 are those of 19
March and 15 May; both have the same value of epicentral intensity VIII. It should
be pointed out that the accumulation of effects of all the earthquakes that occurred
would be equivalent to the area of maximum destruction intensity IX.
It can be stated that, in the area under study, there is very little likelihood of other
late medieval earthquakes with I o >

VII not being included in this review.

Acknowledgments We want to thank Carlos Sousa Oliveira and an anonymous reviewer for their
comments and suggestions that have improved the quality of this paper.

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