The 18 September 1692 Earthquake in the Belgian Ardenne and Its Aftershocks - Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes - page 200

The 18 September 1692 Earthquake
in the Belgian Ardenne and Its Aftershocks

P. Alexandre, D. Kusman, T. Petermans and T. Camelbeeck

Abstract New discoveries in different record-offices provide additional informa-
tion on the effects of the 18 September 1692 earthquake, mainly for localities in
the epicentral area and in Germany. In the northern part of the Belgian Ardenne,
substantial to heavy damage and sometimes complete destruction of houses and
large buildings (castles and churches) is described, suggesting intensity values on
the EMS-98 macroseismic scale ranging from VII to VIII. German records allowed
also to improve the assessment of the intensities in large cities like Koln, Mainz,
Trier and Frankfurt and thus allowed to better delimitate the isoseismals of inten-
sities V and VI towards the East. Based on the intensity evaluation for the 220
localities for which contemporary information is available, the magnitude of the
earthquake has been evaluated to range between 6 and 6 1 / 4 .

A new list of the known aftershocks of the 18 September 1692 earthquake is
presented together with maps indicating the localities in which these have been
reported.

1 Introduction

The most seismic active region of the northwest of Europe (Fig. 1) is the border-
ing region between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. A general overview
of the seismicity and the seismotectonics of this region is given in Camelbeeck
et al. (2007) and Hinzen and Reamer (2007). The strongest known seismic event
occurred on 18 September 1692 approximately at 14:15 (local time). The earthquake
produced significant destructions in the northern part of the Belgian Ardenne and
caused widespread damage from Kent in England to the Rhineland in Germany and
to Champagne in France.
The traditional catalogues and compilations of historical seismicity give an
overview of this earthquake from a limited number of sources contemporary of the
event. Moreover, in these catalogues the difference between an original document