Review of the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake Based on Recent Analyses of Historical Observations - Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes - page 252

Keywords Historical earthquakes · 1755 Lisbon earthquake · source mechanism ·

attenuation · damage · inverse problems

1 Introduction

The importance of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake is known worldwide not only among
the scientific and technical communities but also among many other disciplines of
human kind related to the effects and consequences of the earthquake. The 1755
earthquake was perceived in an enormous area with direct effects along all the
Iberian Peninsula and Morocco, the water movement in Scotland (seiches), the
enormous tsunami that affected the Portuguese, Spanish and Morocco coast, being
remarkable the waves in the other side of the Atlantic, in New Jersey. This example
illustrates clearly that the 1755 earthquake was a unique seismologic event for which
a great deal of information already exists but, on the other hand, still contains many
unresolved problems. But, on the other hand, this event was perhaps the first one
in history that gathered a large amount of important data which can be used to
understand many of the scientific and technical aspects related to it.
In the year when we evocate the remembrance of Jean Vogt, we want to pay our
tribute to one of the individualities that most contribute to the history of seismology
across Europe, bringing to the reader some new facts important to the interpretation
of this historical earthquake that marks the European scientific society for many
decades and centuries. It is compulsory to give continuity to the different studies
that have been developed, with the intention of learning as much as possible about
the phenomenon, but also to make an efficient strategy of prevention and action in
the case of a tragedy of big dimensions.
Since it happened until today, many were the authors that studied the 1755 earth-
quake, and, in the future, a lot more will dedicate his attention to this event. Also
commissions, work groups and investigation programs, etc., have been given an
enormous contribution for the understanding of the phenomenon. The joining of
different specialities, from seismology to the engineering seismology, through the
history and sociology, etc., brought an important number of results in the search of
more and better data.
Concerning only the geophysics and the seismic engineering aspects of the prob-
lem, we can refer the following authors (by chronological order) as a strong base to
the study of the earthquake in Portugal, Spain and Morocco:
Moreira de Mendon¸a (1758), Montessus de Ballore (1906), Pereira de Sousa
(1919-1932), Choffat (1904), Diniz (1910), Reid (1914), Miranda (1931), Rosas da
Silva (1939), Machado (1966), Fran¸a (1977 and 1978), Moreira (1979 and 1984),
Romulo de Carvalho (1987), Brazao Farinha (1990) and Campos (1998).
The 200th anniversary of the earthquake in 1955 was another occasion for using
the date to launch the first modern hazard map of Portugal, in Simposio sobre a
Ac¸ ao dos Sismos (1955), and the first modern seismic code.