The CERESIS earthquake catalogue and database of …...Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The situation for Colombia, Venezuela, and Trinidad and

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ANNALS OF GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 47, N. 2/3, April/June 2004

Key words historical seismicity – South America –CERESIS database – intensity data points – earthquakesource parameters

1. Introduction

The Andean chain is the result of subductionof the Nazca Plate beneath the South AmericanPlate, which extends for more than 9000 kmalong the western margin of South America. Theactivity associated with plate boundaries definesa zone of convergent tectonics, which causes ac-

tive internal deformation in the Andean block,as evidenced by neotectonic activity and a con-centration of seismicity along the inter-Andeanvalleys and coastal fault systems. The Andeanregion is one of the most active seismic regionsof the world and it accounts for about 15% to20% of the total seismic energy released byplanet Earth. Several great earthquakes hit theAndean countries of South America (Argentina,Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru andVenezuela) in the past centuries.

It was generally recognised, half a centuryago, that in many parts of the world progress inseismology depended on the degree of organ-ised regional co-operation. For this reason, UN-ESCO supported the creation of regional centres.A UNESCO Mission, led by Prof. V. V. Be-loussov, visited Latin America in the early

The CERESIS earthquake catalogueand database of the Andean Region:

background, characteristicsand examples of use

Alberto Giesecke (1), Augusto Antonio Gómez Capera (2), Ilaria Leschiutta (2),Elena Migliorini (2) and Leandro Rodriguez Valverde (1)

(1) Centro Regional de Sismologia para América del Sur (CERESIS), Lima, Peru(2) Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Milano, Italy

AbstractThe history of earthquakes in South America starts with the coming of the Spanish and Portuguese «con-quistadores» at the beginning of the 16th century. Their chronicles, and those of local historians, are the on-ly source of earthquake information for the following 400 years. The creation of the Regional Centre forSeismology for South America (CERESIS) was a major factor for homogenous regional progress, in that CERE-SIS promoted the implementation of the first unified earthquake catalogue and database for the whole AndeanRegion. This paper reviews basic information about the intensity database and the focal parameter catalogues pro-posed by CERESIS in 1985. Further macroseismic data available from the CERESIS database (earthquakes with I0 ≥8) are used to obtain preliminary results for the earthquake source parameters of selected South American histor-ical events. The case of the Great Earthquake of the Venezuelan Andes, 29 April 1894, is presented in some de-tail.

Mailing address: Dr. Alberto Giesecke, Centro Region-al de Sismología para América del Sur (CERESIS), P.O.Box 14-0363, Lima, Peru; e-mail: [email protected]

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Alberto Giesecke, Augusto Antonio Gómez Capera, Ilaria Leschiutta, Elena Migliorini and Leandro Rodriguez Valverde

1960s to explore the possibility of establishinga seismological centre for South America. TheMission recommended that such a centre be lo-cated in Lima, Peru. In 1966, UNESCO and theGovernment of Peru signed a Bilateral Agree-ment to create the centre; UNESCO provided op-erating funds for a five-year trial period and fora full-time director; Peru provided the local fa-cilities. A Board of Directors (seismologists,geophysicists, earthquake engineers) was ap-pointed by the government of each participatingcountry (including Trinidad and Tobago), and arepresentative of the Division of Earth Sciencesof UNESCO and of PAIGH (Commission of Geo-physics of the Pan American Institute of Geog-raphy and History) formulated policy, plannedand supervised the centre’s activities.

UNESCO’s financial support ended in 1971. Ameeting of high level government representa-tives of the CERESIS (Regional Centre for Seis-mology for South America) countries was heldin Lima. They decided to convert CERESIS into apermanent, official and autonomous internation-al organisation for the South American region,belonging to the governments of its memberstates. A multinational agreement was draftedand signed by five countries (Bolivia, Colombia,Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) and went into ef-fect on 1st July 1971; the document was de-posited at the Ministry of Foreign Relations ofPeru and it remains open to adhesion of othercountries that wish to become member states.Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, Ecuador,Chile, Spain, Brazil and Paraguay have alsosigned the agreement, and most of them havesubsequently ratified it.

The goal of CERESIS is to improve theknowledge of seismology and related disci-plines and to apply such knowledge to improvethe region’s capacity to cope with earthquakeand volcanic hazard. Since its beginning, CERE-SIS recognised that a unified catalogue of earth-quake parameters for South America was es-sential for progress in many areas of seismo-logical research such as regional studies ofseismicity, seismotectonic and the evaluation ofseismic hazard. The decision was thus made toproduce a regional catalogue. This was madewithin the SISRA Project (Earthquake MitigationProgram in the Andean Region Project) in

1985, which focused on the determination ofhypocentral parameters for South Americanearthquakes. For the pre-instrumental periodand/or poorly monitored areas, intensity values,and focal parameters when possible, were de-termined by investigating and interpreting his-torical reports and chronicles.

In the nineties, in many of the CERESIS coun-tries, there was a loss of interest in integratingnational catalogues, and intensity data above all,for regional purposes. Fortunately, present gen-erations of seismologists and earthquake engi-neers recognise the importance of upgrading in-tensity data and keeping the regional catalogueup to date. Despite the fact that «intensity» is nota scale which is based on instrumental measure-ments, it is nonetheless designed to quantifydamage caused by earthquakes, an aspect whichno other instrumental parameter can measure assatisfactorily. Practical applications of intensitiesare illustrated by the following examples:

i) Earthquakes are the largest financial riskfaced by insurance companies. Therefore, thesecompanies must be as highly informed as pos-sible about the risks they might encounter. Forexample, the well-known Skandia Group Insur-ance Co. uses the CERESIS «Maximum IntensityMap of South America» as a tool to evaluaterisk in the Andean region.

ii) In Chile, «quality of soil» maps have beenprepared as a function of differences of ModifiedMercalli Intensity (MMI), observed between dif-ferent types of soil during the same earthquake.Accurate estimates of the possible intensity at agiven location have been achieved as a functionof magnitude and distance, on the basis of atten-uation equations relating magnitude-distance-in-tensity. Such expressions have the virtue of beingvery reliable due to the fairly large quantity ofdata available over a very broad range of intensi-ties, distances and magnitudes.

CERESIS has presented a proposal to theCommission of Geophysics of the Pan Ameri-can Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH)to interpret and catalogue the large amount ofintensity data (mostly in MM, Modified Mer-calli scale) accumulated in South America overthe past 20 years. We hope this effort will leadto a CERESIS training project, with the participa-tion of historians and seismologists, to produce

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The CERESIS earthquake catalogue and database of the Andean Region: background, characteristics and examples of use

in each country a group of professionals, withthe required expertise, training and capacity,who are essential for reliable and consistent as-sessment of intensity.

2. Background of the Andean Regioncatalogue and intensity database

Historical earthquakes in South Americancountries are found in historical documents fromSpanish colonial times, ancient newspapers, per-sonal notes, chronicles, records of public offices,etc. These were mainly compiled by ecclesiasti-cal authorities, and governors. Early compila-tions of earthquakes were produced by some sci-entists and scholars. Such compilations, includ-ing, for instance, Boussingault and Roulin (1849)in Ecuador, and Montessus de Ballore (1912,1916) in Bolivia and Chile, can be considered thefirst seismic catalogues of South America.

During the past century, Jesuit seismolo-gists gave an outstanding contribution to the de-velopment of modern seismology in SouthAmerica. Fathers Pierre Descotes, Luis Fernán-dez and Ramon Cabré in Bolivia, German Saain Chile and Peru, Rafael Goberna in Cuba andColombia, Jesus Emilio Ramirez in Colombia,were part of a generation of Jesuits who playedan important role in studying earthquakes indifferent parts of the world.

Historical research was proposed by SISRA

Project and supported by the US GeologicalSurvey, financed by the US Office of ForeignDisaster Assistance and the CERESIS countries.Historical compilations of destructive earth-quakes of South America from 1530 to 1894are published in vol. 10 of CERESIS (1985),which contains information collected by Sil-gado (1978, 1985) in several public and uni-versity libraries, local and central governmentoffices and archives in South America, Spain,France and England. Data from the Spanishcolony were found in Spain at the ArchivoGeneral de las Indias in Sevilla, at the Bib-lioteca Nacional de Madrid, at the ArchivoHistórico Nacional and at the Real Academiade Historia. In London, Silgado found dataabout earthquakes from colonial and republi-can time of South America at the British Li-

brary, «Sección de Manuscritos Españoles».He also consulted reports of the English con-suls of the 19th century, stored in the PublicRecord Office at Kew, U.K. In France, Silga-do searched at the Bibliothèque Nationale deFrance in Paris, where he consulted the «Cat-alogo de los manuscritos españoles de AlfredMorel Fatio» and the manuscripts of Montes-sus de Ballore, which are a compilation ofSouth American earthquakes from colonialtime to the end of the 19th century. In Stras-bourg, Silgado consulted Perrey’s works atthe library of the Institut de Physique duGlobe. Finally, Silgado (1985, 1992) derivedintensities of historical earthquakes of SouthAmerica by interpreting the historical descrip-tive texts.

The intensity scales most commonly used inSouth America are the Modified Mercalli scale(MM) and the Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnikscale (MSK). However, there is growing interestin the new European Macroseismic Scale 1998:EMS (Grünthal, 1998), which derives from thenecessity to introduce in the MSK scale bothnew types of buildings (engineered and anti-seismic construction) and the criteria of vulner-ability. At best, intensity assessment is a com-plex endeavour that requires expertise, profes-sional skill and remarkable historical back-ground. Therefore, it is better evaluated whenhistorians and seismologists work together.

National maps of maximum intensities (MMmacroseismic scale) at a scale of 1:2 000 000were adjusted and integrated to produce a re-gional map of South America at the scale1:5 000 000 (CERESIS, 1985). Isoseismal maps of220 strong earthquakes and values of intensity atselected locations were integrated. Juan CarlosCastano, Director of INPRES (Instituto Nacionalde Prevención Sísmica), Argentina, was the re-gional co-ordinator for the map.

CERESIS provided an unparalleled frame-work aimed at unifying and upgrading the vari-ous existing national catalogues and intensitydata (fig. 1a,b). The most important work on theCERESIS hypocentre catalogue was done by thenational groups of each participating country,who entered the data using common formatsagreed by the national representatives. The re-gional co-ordinator for the catalogue was

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Leonidas Ocola of the Geophysical Institute ofPeru. The regional catalogue, edited by Askewand Algermissen (CERESIS, 1985), covers a timeperiod which begins with the earliest knownhistorical event (1471) and ends in 1985.

Below, we briefly describe the state-of-the-art of historical seismology studies forEcuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina,Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The situation forColombia, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobagois described in Espinosa et al. (2004), Altez andGrases (2004) and Vogt (2004).

2.1. Ecuador

The Observatorio Astronómico de Quito(1959) compiled a descriptive and parametriccatalogue of earthquakes that occurred between1534 and 1958 as a contribution to the Interna-tional Geophysical Year. The catalogue and in-tensity database compiled in the framework ofthe SISRA Project and published in vol. 6 ofCERESIS (1985), are based on information fromObservatorio Astronómico de Quito (1959),Egred (1968) and data from international seis-

mological agencies. Historical archives wereconsulted as the Archivo Municipal de Quito,the Archivo Nacional de Historia, the NationalLibrary and the Aurelio Espinosa Polit Libraryin Quito. Historical sources are quoted as forexample «Libros de Cabildo de la Ciudad deQuito» (1645, 1675, 1775), documents fromSpanish colonial times.

At present there is interest amongst histori-ans in Ecuador to investigate the social, eco-nomic and political impact of major earth-quakes and volcanic eruptions.

Special care was taken to interpret thelanguage and avoid confusion between earth-quakes and volcanic eruptions, to attenuatethe tendency to exaggerate or ignore evi-dence according to personal criteria. Bothdescriptions of large events by different au-thors and documents found in Sevilla (Archi-vo General de las Indias) and in the archivesof the convents within Ecuador have beencompared. Another difficulty was that causedby place names, since some localities havechanged their names over the years. Forsome of them it has been impossible to find areliable location.

Fig. 1a,b. a) IDP distribution from the CERESIS database; b) Epicentre distribution from the CERESIS database.

a b

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2.2. Peru

Primary historical sources in Peru spanfrom the Spanish Conquest (16th century) andSpanish colonial times to the 19th century.These sources are anonymous notes, letters,chronicles, records of public offices preparedby ecclesiastical authorities, governors, etc. Po-lo (1904), Barriga (1951) and Silgado (1968)investigated both Peruvian libraries andarchives and the Archivo General de las Indiasin Sevilla. The results of this research wereused for the catalogue of strong earthquakes(Espejo, 1974) compiled by the Instituto Geofísico del Perú and for the Peruvian para-metric catalogue (Ocola, 1984) prepared in theframework of the SISAN Project (Sismicidad An-dina, Andean Seismicity). At the same time,Huaco (1983) performed historical investiga-tions and quantification of historical informa-tion and similar studies were published by Sil-gado (1978, 1985). The results obtained by thissecond wave of research are at the basis of thePeruvian catalogue and intensity database pub-lished in vol. 7 of CERESIS (1985).

Further studies (e.g., Dorbath et al., 1990;Silgado, 1992) made possible a revised and updated Peruvian CERESIS catalogue from 1470to 1982, which is available since 2000 athttp://www.igp.gob.pe/

2.3. Bolivia

The Jesuit priest Pierre M. Descotes (1877-1964) is considered the father of seismology ofBolivia. For more than 50 years, he served asDirector of the San Calixto Observatory (OSC).Father Descotes collected and studied all avail-able references for historical earthquakes (De-scotes and Cabre, 1973), particularly Ballivian(1909) and Montessus de Ballore (1912). Vega(1978) compiled a first systematisation of seis-mological information through the project SISAN

where the main bibliographical sources wereDescotes’s work and publications from the in-ternational seismological agencies. The CERESIS

catalogue and intensity database for Bolivia wascompiled on the basis of the SISAN catalogue(Vega, 1978) and a search of more data in his-

torical archives as the Archivo de Potosi and theArchivo Nacional de Bolivia. Some historicalsources and ancient newspapers are quoted byCERESIS (1985), as for example: Anonimous(1650), Lara (1860), La Industria (1884, news-paper of Sucre town) and La Estrella de Oriente(1890, newspaper of Santa Cruz town). Thiscatalogue, critically revised and complemented,was published in vol. 3 of CERESIS (1985). Thecompilation of the catalogue continued up to the1981, using data of both the U.S. GeologicalSurvey and the International SeismologicalCentre (ISC).

2.4. Chile

The catalogue of earthquakes for Chile cov-ers a long history. The compilation of events thatoccurred in colonial times were in general relat-ed to studies aimed at compiling texts on the his-tory and geography of Chile, rather than for sci-entific purposes. Montessus de Ballore (1911,1912, 1916) produced the most complete cata-logue of historical Chilean earthquakes. Greve(1964) and Lomnitz (1970) have added historicalinformation to this catalogue. During the firstfour decades of the 20th century several interna-tional institutions and universities began thepreparation of world catalogues with valuable in-formation related to Chile. The Department ofGeology and Geophysics of the Universidad deChile, Santiago, runs the Chilean SeismologicalService. A catalogue of destructive earthquakesis available at http://ssn.dgf.uchile.cl/home/sismohisto.html/

The Chilean catalogue and database com-piled by SISRA Project, and published in vol. 5of CERESIS (1985), are documented in detailmainly by Greve (1964), Lomnitz (1970),Kausel (1979a, 1979b).

Some problems were nonetheless encoun-tered in the compilation of intensity databasefor Chile. For example, some localities relatedto the 1868 and 1877 earthquakes do not haveco-ordinates and their names are not known,possibly because they correspond to places insouthern Peru, western Bolivia or Chile, whicheither were abandoned or changed theirnames.

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2.5. Argentina

A working group at INPRES (Instituto Na-cional de Prevención Sísmica) was appointedto prepare the national catalogue of Argentinain early 1980’s. Their first step was to compileall available data, historical and instrumental,pertinent to earthquakes that affected the Ar-gentine territory. When the SISRA Project start-ed, what was previously achieved was re-viewed in order to proceed within the guide-lines and formats proposed by SISRA. New in-formation on destructive earthquakes was ob-tained from different historical sources, mainlynewspapers and magazines of the time for dif-ferent places in the country. Thus, the first Ar-gentine catalogue and intensity database wascompiled (CERESIS, 1985). This cataloguequotes studies and compilations from Lunken-heimer (1930), Olsacher (1935), Harrington(1944), and Volponi (1962). A parametric anddescriptive catalogue is today available athttp://www.inpres.gov.ar/

2.6. Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay

Although seismic hazard in Brazil, Uruguayand Paraguay is low, it is worth stressing thatthese three countries voluntarily joined andsupport CERESIS. Since they occupy most of thePrecambrian shields of the continent and are lo-cated in the internal continental region of theSouth American Plate, seismic activity is ex-pected to be low, similar to other intraplate re-gions on the earth.

The first seismological station in Brazil wasestablished in 1921 in Rio de Janeiro. The pres-ent national network includes several local andregional sub-networks and many first order sta-tions. The study of the seismicity of the Brazil-ian territory has intensified in recent years. Thisis explained by i) the interest of Brazilian seis-mologists, CERESIS and the University of Edin-burgh in the installation of the South American(Seismic) Array System, near Brasilia, ii) thenecessity of carrying out detailed studies onseismicity and seismic risk for the constructionof large hydroelectric dams and nuclear reac-tors, and iii) the rather constant occurrence of

small and, generally, non-destructive earth-quakes of intensity V MM. Seismic activity isobserved on the continent near the Atlanticcoastline, from Belem in the north to St. Catari-na, south of Sao Paulo. Induced earthquakes ofmagnitude mb 3.5 to 3.7 have occurred twice inParana. The important contribution Brazil gaveto South American seismology was to improvethe locations of several Andean epicentres.

A working group of seismologists from theInstituto Astronómico e Geofisico, the Institutode Geociencias (USP) and the Estação Sis-mológica de Brasília, at the request of the Na-tional Commission for Nuclear Energy, under-took a study of the seismicity of Brazil. The re-sulting catalogue was published by Berrocal etal. (1984) and includes historical events datingback to 1560. Previous attempts to compile a cat-alogue began with Capanema (1859).

In Uruguay, the Universidad de la Repúblicain Montevideo is the liaison institution withCERESIS. Uruguay’s interest in seismology is re-lated to large engineering projects, e.g., the SaltoGrande dam (a bilateral project with Argentina)and the 60 km long bridge across the La Platariver, from Buenos Aires to Colonia. The CERESIS

regional seismicity map shows one seismic eventlocated in the middle of the La Plata, close towhere the bridge will probably be built. Themaximum intensity map shows that the area hasan intensity of V MM.

In Paraguay, the Universidad Nacional deAsunción (Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Nat-urales) is the national liaison institution withCERESIS. Paraguay operates one of SouthAmerica’s four GTSN, high gain, stations lo-cated about 100 km south of Asunción. Threeother GTSN stations are located near La Paz, inBariloche (Argentina) and in Brasilia.

3. Characteristics of the CERESIS databaseand use

Macroseismic data are frequently used forparameterisation of the seismogenic sourcesand evaluation of seismic hazard. Consequent-ly, several seismological institutions have for-malised their historical data into homogeneousmacroseismic databases and have developed

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online databases to increase the disseminationof data through the web (see Rubbia, 2004).

The CERESIS database (http://www.ceresis.org) is the main source of Intensity Data Points(IDP) for South America, it contains 16 318IDP (fig. 1a) related to 3183 events (fig. 1b) that

occurred from 1471 to 1985 in eight SouthAmerican countries and one Caribbean country(table I).

The format of the CERESIS database includestwo types of record as shown in table II. Foreach event, the first line provides the earth-

Country Time - window No. of earthquake No. of IDP

Argentina 1692-1985 45 703

Bolivia 1650-1981 45 208

Brazil 1767-1981 114 431

Chile 1730-1977 61 816

Colombia 1566-1981 188 2097

Ecuador 1541-1980 153 1416

Peru 1471-1981 2023 8354

Trinidad and Tobago 1825-1981 23 78

Venezuela 1530-1981 531 2215

Total 3183 16318

Cou Code Ye Da Da Ho Mi Se ILat ILon MLat MLon Dph Ms I0 Ne

HYP PE 120 1586 07 10 00:30:00 –12.300 –77.700 60 10M 12

PE LIMA –12.10 –77.00 100 76 81 8K DH 421PE CALLAO –12.05 –77.15 32 62 74 8K DH 421

PE CALLAO –12.04 –77.09 20 10 41 319 8K UTLO 411

PE CALLAO –12.04 –77.09 20 10 41 319 9K UTLO 411

PE CARAVEL –15.77 –73.36 1779 567 568 136 3K UTLO 411PE CUZCO –13.52 –71.97 3326 571 573 106 3K UTLO 411PE HUANUCO –9.92 –76.23 1894 257 261 20 3K UTLO 411

PE ICA –14.07 –75.72 439 259 262 147 5K UTLO 411

PE ICA –14.07 –75.72 439 259 262 147 6K UTLO 411

PE LIMA –12.05 –77.05 32 7 41 333 9K UTLO 411

PE LIMA –12.05 –77.05 32 7 41 333 8K UTLO 411

PE TRUJILLO –8.10 –79.03 51 495 496 33 3K UTLO 411

HYP PE19795 1960 11 20 22:01:56 -6.800 -81.000 55 6.8 Ms 6M 2

PE PIURA –5.20 –80.62 35 54 81 35 6K UTLO 411

PE PIURA –5.20 –80.62 35 54 81 35 5K UTLO 411

Table I. Time-windows, number of earthquakes and related IDP in the CERESIS database.

Table II. Example of CERESIS database format. Examples of duplicate record, as for different «interpreter» (i.e.Callao: DH or UTLO) or uncertainties in the intensity assignment (i.e. Callao I = 8/9), are reported.

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quake parameters (i.e. epicentral co-ordinates,epicentral or maximum intensity, magnitude,depth, number of related IDP – although this isnot always reported); in the following lines, theIDP related to the earthquake are listed.

All intensities are given in either MM(Modified Mercalli) or MSK (Medvedev-Spon-heuer-Karnik) macroseismic scales. The inves-tigator who assigned the intensity value is iden-tified as «interpreter» («DH» or «UTLO» intable II). A more detailed description of the cat-alogue format is given in vol. 1 of CERESIS

(1985), including the list of the «interpreters»and the references they used. The database con-tains some cases of duplicate records for thesame events and/or localities. This is either dueto different interpreter/source or to uncertain-ties in the intensity assessment. For instance, ifthe «interpreter» assess an I = 7/8 for a givenlocality, two records are present in the database,one with I = 7 and another with I = 8.

The increased availability of historical datainterpreted in terms of IDP has stimulated seis-mologists to develop standard and repeatableprocedures to determine earthquake source pa-rameters, in order to lower the level of subjec-tivity they are usually determined upon.

The Boxer program (Gasperini et al., 1999) isan example of these new procedures. The algo-rithm computes the parameters of the earthquakesource from IDP; it provides the seismological pa-rameters (latitude and longitude of the epicentre,moment magnitude) and a geometric model of thesource through a box that represents the surfaceprojection of the modelled seismogenic source.

The original version of the program is de-signed only for dip-slip faults and it was initial-ly calibrated for Apenninic earthquakes (in mostcases shallow events). The program representseach source as the surface projection of a faultdipping 45° towards a direction perpendicular tothe fault strike (Gasperini et al., 1999). The pro-jection width constrains the fault at depth.

The program was largely tested in Italy(Valensise and Pantosti, 2001; Mirto et al.,2001) and Europe, first in the frame of the ECproject FAUST (Faults as a Seismologist’s Tool,http://faust.ingv.it), whose goal was to deter-mine the source parameters (Leschiutta andMirto, 2000; Stucchi et al., 2000) of some Eu-

ropean earthquakes using the EuropeanMediterranean Intensity Database (EMID),and then by other European seismologists(Kouskouna, 2002).

Given the widespread use of Boxer, we de-cided to test it using the CERESIS database. Weare perfectly aware that in South America earth-quakes are chiefly deep crustal or due to sub-duction processes, and the structures are oftenstrike-slip faults. Nonetheless, we applied theBoxer method to some earthquakes of theSouth-American region without considering theapplicability limit of Boxer to pure dip-slipfaults and attenuation of earthquake intensityfor the Italian territory. As such, our results rep-resent a very preliminary attempt of determin-ing source parameters for some large SouthAmerican earthquakes.

3.1. Examples of use: analysing records todetermine sources parameters

With the aim of determining source parametersusing the macroseismic data provided by CERESIS

database we focused on large events; 201 earth-quakes above the threshold of I0 ≥ 8, are consideredin this study. Figure 2a,b shows the distribution ofearthquakes and number of IDP for 50-year timewindows, for the 201 selected earthquakes.

In some of the studied cases, the CERESIS

database contains for an individual earthquakeduplicated intensity values assessed at the sameplace. Since the Boxer program accepts one in-tensity value only for each place, an a priorichoice has been made; both in case of differentinterpreters and of uncertain intensity, the high-est intensity value has been adopted. The num-ber of IDP in the CERESIS database for the 201events with I0 ≥ 8 is 5515, while those used inthis study are 4245 only (table III).

Out of the 201 events above the threshold(I0 ≥ 8) a more detailed selection was carriedout considering the characteristics of the Boxerprogram (table IV). Therefore only events withan appropriate number of IDP (no. ≥ 10) havebeen considered; all the earthquakes with a fo-cal depth ≥ 30 km have been disregarded aswell as the offshore and subduction events. Theidentification of the subduction events was sup-

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ported by the available literature. Dorbath et al.(1990) assessed the size of large and great his-torical earthquakes in zones along the trench inPeru. These zones correspond roughly to seg-mentation defined by the geometry of the sub-duction zone. Other authors, such as Lomnitz(1970), Kelleher (1972), Pennington (1981),Kanamori and McNally (1982), Nishenko(1985), Comte and Pardo (1991), Mongue(1993), Tavera and Buforn (1998), Tavera(2002) and Carpio and Tavera (2002) listed themajor earthquakes along South American sub-duction zone. They are the 1746, 1868, 1912,1913, 1970 earthquakes in Peru, and the 1730,1751, 1822, 1868, 1877, 1928, 1966 earth-

Fig. 2a,b. a) Number of earthquakes per 50-year time-windows and b) number of IDP per 50-year time-win-dows, for the 201 earthquakes with I0 ≥ 8 from CERESIS database.

Table III. Number of records in the CERESIS database for earthquakes with I0 ≥ 8.

Country CERESIS database I0 ≥ 8 This study I0 ≥ 8

Time-window No. of earthquakes No. of IDP No. of IDP used

Argentina 1692-1985 17 483 480

Bolivia 1650-1947 6 30 30

Brazil 1955 1 10 10

Chile 1730-1976 13 382 330

Colombia 1644-1981 43 1287 921

Ecuador 1541-1980 29 912 871

Peru 1471-1974 63 1775 990

Trinidad & Tobago 1825 1 14 14

Venezuela 1530-1975 28 622 599

Total 201 5515 4245

Table IV. Criteria used for selecting earthquakerecords from 201 events with I0 ≥ 8.

Criteria No. of earthquakeseliminated

Number of IDP < 10 89

Focal Depth > 30 km 45

Off Shore events 18

Subduction events 11

Incoherent IDP distribution 1

Total events eliminated 164

a b

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intensities are essentially similar. Table V list also«∆Epic.» that is the distance between the CERESIS

epicentres and the macroseismic ones computedby the Boxer program. This comparison betweenepicentres shows some cases with distance greaterthan 150 km. The only justifiable difference is theone concerning 9 April 1928, Peru earthquake, be-cause in this case CERESIS gives the instrumentallocalisation. For the other two events (26 March1812 Venezuela and 27 October 1894 Argentinaearthquakes) a more detailed analysis would benecessary (but it is out of the scope of this study).

Fig. 3. Location of 37 intensity-based sources (box) quoted in table V. The adjacent number to each box cor-responds to ID_Box (table first column).

quakes in Chile. These are the events not con-sidered by this study. Adopting the above de-scribed criteria only 37 events have beenprocessed with the method proposed byGasperini et al. (1999). In fig. 3, boxes repre-senting the source dimension, size and locationobtained from macroseismic data are shown.

Table V gives the CERESIS parameters, the pa-rameters computed by Boxer and a comparisonbetween them. In general, the moment magnitudecalculated by Boxer program is smaller than themagnitude Ms reported by CERESIS. The epicentral

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tina

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014

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04.

315

1914

12

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3 ±

217

0.0

16.6

1619

28 0

4 09

Peru

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117

6.0

12.7

8.2

101

±00

0–

2.0

–0.

913

7.8

1719

28 0

5 14

Peru

10M

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316

96.

945

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143

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048

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entin

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114

.08.

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00.

128

.820

1938

08

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5.8

9.5

7.0

090

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50.

01.

2 21

1942

12

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86.

524

.911

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0.0

0.0

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1 15

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entin

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MM

307.

439

96.

941

.615

.507

6 ±

165

0.0

–0.

512

.623

1946

11

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3411

7.3

70.8

20.7

132

±01

60.

00.

021

.124

1947

07

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599

5.9

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7.7

159

±11

50.

00.

436

.425

1950

08

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86.

215

.79.

204

3 ±

044

0.0

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.626

1952

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tina

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177

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105

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021

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4 21

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7.0

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70.

00.

490

.329

1961

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77.

96.

315

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0.0

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3019

66 0

9 04

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MM

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75.

24.

14.

412

1 ±

076

–1.

019

.731

1969

10

01Pe

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MM

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5.3

4.6

4.7

036

±00

9–

2.0

9.7

3219

70 0

9 26

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ombi

a8

MM

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613

76.

012

.07.

900

0 ±

000

–1.

0–

0.6

21.6

3319

74 0

4 18

Col

ombi

a9

MM

244.

510

86.

320

.210

.515

1 ±

158

–1.

01.

814

.634

1974

07

13C

olom

bia

8M

M12

7.3

178

7.0

47.0

16.6

006

±04

20.

0–

0.3

57.9

3519

76 0

4 09

Ecu

ador

8M

M19

6.7

677

5.8

5.7

5.3

017

±03

2–

1.0

–0.

915

.436

1977

11

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rgen

tina

9M

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7.4

132

96.

940

.215

.310

8 ±

031

0.0

–0.

586

.437

1985

01

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M12

228

5.8

9.5

7.0

064

±05

00.

024

.4

Yr

Mo

Da

432


3.2. The earthquake of 29 April 1894 in theVenezuelan Andes

The 1894 event is one of the largest historicalearthquakes in Venezuela. It is known as the Greatearthquake of the Venezuelan Andes and it almostcompletely ruined the towns of Santa Cruz de Mo-

ra, Zea, Mesa de Bolivar, Tovar, San Juan de La-gunillas, Chiguará y Mérida (Audemard, 1998).Altuve (1998), Rengifo and Laffaille (1998) andRivera de Uzcategui and Torres (1998) investigat-ed and collected historical sources on this event.

CERESIS (1985) on the basis of the historicalwork by Grases (1979), gives the epicentre as8.50°N, 71.70°W, at a 20 km depth, magnitudeMs = 7.1, and maximum reported intensity IX(MM). Also the epicentre given by Rengifo andLaffaille (1998) is similar: 8.55° ± 0.05°N,71.69° ± 0.05°W, but with a focal depth estimat-ed in 14 ± 2 km, and a magnitude ranging be-tween 7.1 and 7.4. Recently this event has beendirectly associated to the southern section of theBocono fault through paleoseismological inves-tigations (Audemard, 1997, 1998; Audemard etal., 1999) and its magnitude has been estimatedbetween Ms 7.1 and 7.3. Based on the 71 macro-seismic data reported by CERESIS (fig. 4a,b), themacroseismic epicentre (8.39°N, 71.70°W) andthe moment magnitude (Mw = 6.8) were obtainedthrough the Boxer program.

As shown in fig. 4a,b, the Boxer program sug-gests that the 1894 earthquake ruptured a sourcewith a length of 39 km and an azimuth of N60°E.This result can be considered consistent with theregional tectonic trend, and it is further supportedby the conclusions drawn by Audemard et al.(2000). In fact, they mention this earthquake as anevent related to historical movement (sense ofmovement: dextral-normal) of the South of Méri-da Section of Bocono fault system, in Venezuela.

4. Conclusions

Between 1950 and 1970, before the CERESIS

foundation, compilations, studies and catalogueswere produced by various seismologists andSouth American seismological agencies. In 1985,the earthquake catalogue and intensity databasefor eight South American countries (Argentina,Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peruand Venezuela) and one Caribbean country(Trinidad and Tobago) were compiled throughthe SISRA Project, which were then assembled inthe CERESIS earthquake catalogue and intensitydatabase (CERESIS, 1985). Data came from previ-ous compilations and new interpretations of his-

Fig. 4a,b. The 29 April 1894 earthquake in Venezuela:a) 71 intensity data points reported by CERESIS (1985);b) the box represents the source dimension, size and lo-cation obtained from intensity data following themethod proposed by Gasperini et al. (1999).

b

a

433


torical and instrumental records within a timewindow of about 500 years; earthquakes oc-curred in pre-Hispanic times are not included,apart from some information on the 1471 earth-quake in Peru. Given the huge amount of dataand the level of its organisation, the South Amer-ican intensity database produced by CERESIS is aparamount achievement in the framework ofmacroseismic studies.

A recently developed application, whichprocesses macroseismic data (Boxer, Gasperiniet al., 1999) and was originally tested in Italyand Europe, has been adopted in this study.Even though this application should be careful-ly tested, given the nature of the South Ameri-can catalogues, which include both shallow andsubduction earthquakes, the results we achievedare to some degree conformable.

To conclude, we emphasise that more ef-forts are needed to develop methods that makeuse of macroseismic intensity data to constrainthe essential characteristics of the seismicsources for South America.

Acknowledgements

We are very thankful to Massimiliano Stuc-chi for his thoughtful suggestions and continu-ous encouragement. We also thank Paola Albinifor reviewing the manuscript and making helpfulcomments. Thanks are extended to an anony-mous referee whose comments improved an ear-ly version of the manuscript.

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The CERESIS earthquake catalogue and database of …...Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The situation for Colombia, Venezuela, and Trinidad and