History of earthquake studies in Russia · 2016. 6. 15. · (2001) (fig. 1). The first Russian...

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

Key words earthquakes – historical seismicity –evaluation of completeness and accuracy of knowl-edge on seismicity

1. Introduction

Understanding of the completeness of mod-ern knowledge on seismic history is essentialfor correct seismic hazard assessment. Seismichistory is carried in earthquake catalogues andevents based on macroseismic data present themost long-term part of it: they have a crucialimportance, even if the number of events in in-strumental catalogues is much more. Tradition-ally, completeness of a catalogue is evaluatedusing magnitude-frequency graphs: it is be-lieved that the data for a given time-period iscomplete in the linear part of graph (for exam-ple, Bune and Gorshkov, 1980). Therefore, thecompleteness of a sample (earthquake cata-logue) is evaluated upon statistics calculated on

this sample (together with some a priori as-sumptions). We suspect certain drawbacks insuch methodology. For example, the assump-tion of magnitude-frequency relationship lin-earity might be wrong for given spatial andtemporal frames of study (even if it is true forthe seismicity in a whole). In this paper, the po-tential duration of historical earthquake studiesin Russia is assessed analysing the geopoliticaland socio-cultural conditions in the country.

History of earthquake study is not simply a se-quence of publications of earthquake catalogues;first of all, it is a development of ideas, generalapproaches and techniques. To understand state-of-the art and future perspectives, the history ofmacroseismic studies in Russia is analysed.

Macroseismic studies are of special impor-tance for seismic hazard assessment of low ac-tive territories, because instrumentally recordedevents are very few or absent. Regional seismo-metric networks usually are far from low activeareas and when the network registers small ormoderate earthquakes, accurate data processingis very difficult. In platforms, especially nearlarge rivers, the problem is complicated by thepresence of active exogenous phenomena(landslides, karsts), which can produce falseevents in earthquake catalogues.

History of earthquake studies in Russia

Ruben TatevossianJoint Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia

AbstractTo evaluate the completeness of modern knowledge on historical seismicity it is necessary to know the generalgeopolitical and socio-cultural background in the country. It determines the possibility to record the evidence ofan earthquake and conserve the record in original form for a long time-period. The potential duration of histor-ical earthquake study in Russia is assessed based on these considerations. Certain stages of earthquake study inRussia have been detected. Specific problems of seismicity studies of low active areas are discussed as an ex-ample of Russian platform. The value of each (even moderate magnitude) event becomes crucial for seismic haz-ard assessment in such territories. A correct identification of event nature (tectonic earthquake or exogenous phe-nomena – landslides, karsts, etc.) is practically impossible without using primary sources with detailed descrip-tions. Occurrence of modern earthquakes can be used to assess the accuracy of historical seismicity knowledge.

Mailing address: Dr. R. Tatevossian, Joint Institute ofPhysics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, B.Gruzinskaya 10, 123995 Moscow, Russia; e-mail:[email protected]

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The goals of the paper are: i) to evaluate thepotential historical duration of earthquake stud-ies in Russia independent from catalogue statis-tics; ii) to present history, state-of-the-art andperspectives of macroseismology; iii) to discussspecific problems of earthquake studies in lowactive territories.

2. Potential «duration» of historicalearthquake studies in Russia

To be able today to study an earthquake whichoccurred in the past it is necessary for the infor-mation on its effects to have been recorded, con-served in the original form for a long time-period

and this information has to be accessible now. Ex-istence of the whole informative chain depends ongeopolitical and socio-cultural conditions. For ex-ample, the presence of written language, i.e. thecapability of people of writing and so to leavewritten records, essentially raises the chances ofrecording the earthquake. A high cultural level ofsociety provokes interest in natural phenomena:in such society there is a good chance that evenmoderate earthquakes will be reported as some-thing worth mentioning. Frequent invasions of en-emies and damage caused by invaders, dramati-cally decrease the possibilities of records surviv-ing for a long time.

The summary of territorial changes of theRussian state starting from the time of its foun-

Fig. 1. Territorial expansion of the Russian state: a – the first Russian state formed in the 9th century (Kiev Russia);b – independent Russian princedoms established in the next 300 years (Moscow princedom was founded in 1147); c– Russia after forming the centralised state (beginning of the 17th century); d – territories included in Russia in 17thcentury (up to 1689); e – Russia before the World War I; f – regions under strong influence of Russia at the beginning20th century. Dates of two events discussed in this paper are shown: 1839 – a falsequake from Volga River basin; 2001– a moderate magnitude event on the southern part of Russian platform. Verniy (modern Alma-Ata) is indicated in re-lation with the earthquake of 1887 presented as example of preinstrumental stage of earthquake studies in Russia.Numbers on map stand for: 1 – Eastern Carpathia; 2 – Crimea; 3 – Eastern Anatolia and Caucasus.


dation up to 20th century is compiled based oninformation from Schmidt (1998), Volodikhin(1995), Volodikhin (1997) and Zalesskiy et al.(2001) (fig. 1). The first Russian state wasformed (Kiev Russia, 9th century) on practical-ly aseismic areas of the East-European plat-form: region of Kiev - Chernigov - Pereslavl.During the following 300 years several inde-pendent princedoms appeared on the Russianplatform (Smolensk, Novgorod, Vladimir-Suz-dal, Ryazan, Murom, Moscow): so the develop-ment was toward practically aseismic regions.To the end of this period Russia lost its inde-pendence and underwent Mongol-Tatar rule.The next step of its territorial expansion oc-curred after regaining independence and form-ing a centralised state (15th-16th centuries). Forthe first time, Russia occupied some seismoac-tive lands. As a result of the next expansionseismoactive territories compose its consider-able part (Baikal, Kamchatka, Far East), thoughthese areas were very poorly populated. Sincethat time, Russia permanently expanded its ter-ritory and before World War I it became one ofthe most seismoactive countries in the World.The Russian Empire included such seismoac-tive regions as Eastern Carpathia, Caucasus,Crimea, Eastern Anatolia, Central Asia, Baikal,Altai, Sayans, Kuril Islands, and Kamchatka;under its influence were Northern Iran and alarge part of Mongolia and Northern China.From consideration of spatial changes in Russiamore or less regular occurrence of earthquakeson its territory could be expected starting from1700s. Before that time these territories mightalso be active, as later on, but they were out ofRussia, which gives little chance to have arecord of this activity in Russian sources. Spa-tial changes are not the only important ones.Favourable conditions for recording earthquakemacroseismic effects and conserving the recordare necessary. Some socio-cultural events inRussia affecting these conditions are listed intable I. The information is extracted fromSchmidt (1998), Volodikhin (1995), Volodikhin(1997) and Zalesskiy et al. (2001). Compilationof table I stopped at 1862 because of the foun-dation of the Rumyantsev public library, whichwas later transformed into the Russian State Li-brary. The library subscribted to all the newspa-

pers and bought a copy of each book publishedin Russia. Since that time we have a reliableplace where written sources are stored.

Table II presents the information directly re-lated to the safety of historical materials. Data onall 14 Federal State Archives of Russia is given:date of archive foundation, time period for whichit contains documents and amount of documentsis indicated. Information is taken from the web-site: http://www.rusarchives.ru/federal/list.shtml.

Tables I and II display that starting from1700s conditions were favourable for regularrecording of earthquake reports. At the sametime, some events (table I) give evidence thateven a century later omissions in catalogues arenot excluded because of unrecoverable lossesof information, particularly because of fires.

3. Main stages of earthquake studies

History of earthquake study has never beena permanent progressive flow of ideas, methodsand achievements. To make the presentation ofhistory of earthquake studies in Russia betterstructured certain stages are marked out.

3.1. Preinstrumental / geographical stage(1850-1902)

In the second half of the 19th century a num-ber of destructive earthquakes occurred in the ter-ritory of the Russian Empire and in the vicinity ofits borders: Ararat, 1840; Shemakha, 1859;Erzrum, 1859. They attracted professional andpublic attention, first of all by numerous victimsand destruction (Abich, 1862). As an example ofearthquake study of this stage we present the pub-lication of Mushketov (1890) on Verniy earth-quake, June 9 (May 28 – old style), 1887. Theearthquake was so destructive that special plans tomove the regional capital city of Verniy (modernAlma-Ata) elsewhere have been prepared. Hardlyany modern publication can be compared with theaccuracy with which Mushketov collected andpresented the materials on the earthquake. Map ofVerniy city and a complete list of all buildings (in-cluding construction type) with detailed descrip-tion of damage are presented in the publication.

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Today this information could be used for micro-zoning of Alma-Ata. Descriptions are proved by anumber of photos of rather high quality (fig. 2).Data on all localities are summarised in the con-cluding table, which is reproduced here in tableIII. This table contains data, which let us to stepfrom seismic hazard to seismic risk assessment.

The description of macroseismic effects in fullscale (and not only maximal effects extracted fromthe general context) makes it possible today to ap-ply modern statistical methods of data processing.

With the same accuracy and completeness aredocumented manifestations of the earthquake innatural environment (fig. 3).

Data

10th century Slavonic written language entered Russia (988-Christening of Russia).

1037 Compilation of first Russian chronicle in Kiev. Total number of known Russianchronicles: 1500; only 35 of them have survived, they are published in the CompleteCollection of Russian Chronicles (1841-1982).

1147 Moscow founded; in 1177 fire practically completely destroyed the town. Later on, this happened several times. For example, even 30 years after the fire in1571, the territory of Moscow was at least two times less and the population was 8times less than before that. This lasted up to 1820s, when stone/brick buildings start-ed to be built instead of wooden ones.

1408 First All-Russian Chronicle was compiled. It burnt down in fire in 1812 together withthe whole collection of manuscripts of Moscow Society of History and Russian An-tiquity.

1460 ca. Moscow becomes the capital of Russia. Since that time historical documents andarchives have been accumulated there up to the time when new capital was built in1703.

1 March 1564 First Russian printed book was published.

1621 First hand-written newspaper was published (only a few issues appeared in onecopy).

1626 The largest Kremlin archive in Moscow burnt down.

1681 First Russian high educational institution was established.

15 Dec 1702 First issue of a regularly printed newspaper appeared.

16 May 1703 St. Petersburg was founded - future «capital» of Russian Academy of Science, Russ-ian Geographical Society, Permanent Central Seismological Commission.

1714 First public library in St. Petersburg was opened.

1724 First «professional» Russian archive - Archive of Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

27 Dec 1725 Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg.

1728 First scientific Russian archive - Archive of Academy of Sciences.

1755 University of Moscow was founded; its public library opened in 1756.

1812 Napoleon’s occupation of Moscow, which leads to great damage to written sources.From 20.5 thousands of books and manuscripts of the Moscow University library on-ly 51 books and 12 manuscripts survived.

1862 Rumyantsev public library founded in Moscow (today Russian State Library). In1995 it retained 39 000 000 items.

Table I. Social and cultural events in Russia affecting the historical earthquake studies.

Event

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Table II. Federal archives of Russia (sorted by date of reported materials).

Place Archive Foundation year/Period covered

Amount ofdocuments

Moscow Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts 191811th cent.-1917

3313000

Russian State Archive of Military History 19251520-1918

3428676

Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts 194118th cent.-1994

1101400

Russian State Archive of Social and Political History

19191760-1993

1649647

State Archive of Russian Federation 19201800-2000

5447137

Russian State Archive of Audio Documents 19321898-2001

200000

Russian State Military Archive 19201917-1991

3393110

Russian State Archive of Economics 19611917-1994

4098718

Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents

1918 863569

Russian State Archive of Modern History 19211922-1991

1232000

Russian State Archive of Science and Technology 1995 ?

St. Petersburg Russian State Archive of Navy 18271659-1940

1218103

Russian State Historical Archive 1922late 18th cent.-1920

6576620

Vladivostok Russian State Historical Archive of the Far East 19431722-1998

500635

Specialists who studied contemporary earth-quakes at such high professional level could notaccept that each catastrophic earthquake has tobe investigated as some random natural phe-nomenon. They wanted to find certain regulari-ties in spatial and temporal distribution of earth-quakes: for this, it was necessary to build earth-quake catalogues, which reflect seismic historyfor as long a time as possible. In 1893, the firstcomprehensive catalogue of Russian earth-quakes was published (Mushketov and Orlov,1893); it included events up to 1887. In the In-

troduction, Mushketov and Orlov explained thereasons why such a catalogue is necessary.These reasons show how little things have beenchanged since that time. In principle, they mightbe copied and passed to any applications of seis-mological project today. Here are the first twosentences of their Introduction:

«Destructive earthquakes recurring from timeto time within the Russian boundaries or neigh-bouring countries often arouse the interest ofRussian society and government; each time whensuch cases happen, expeditions were sent to study

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Table III. Summary table of damage and losses report of 1887, Verniy earthquake compiled by Mushketov(1890).

Locality Population Number of buildings before the earthquake

Number ofdestroyed, or

heavily damagedbuildings

Losses in roubles of

Real estate Moveable property

City of Verniy 21000 1799 1798 1136889 476400

Village B. Almatin-skaya together withM. Almatinskaya

6491 972 347 331930 26225

Lubovniy 1293 232 25 25792 8135

Kazansko-Bogorodskoe 959 120 118 21571 387

Sofiyskaya 3568 576 265 10867 298

Nadezhdinskiy 2239 313 52 800 60

Mikhailovskoe 1352 487 55 331 -

Malovodnoe 242 70 15 331 -

Zaitsevskoe 1393 332 46 637 -

Karasuyskoe 21 16 15 897 -

Kutentaiskoe 102 18 18 375 -

Iliyskiy 275 73 15 1313 -

Sazanovskoe 1111 137 22 3495 -

Uital 178 27 1 290 -

Total 40394 5172 2792 1535518 511505

Fig. 2. Example of documentation of damage in Verniy (photos from Mushketov, 1890). We can clearly see the typeof construction and damage.

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compiled a table which is reproduced here(table IV). Completeness is evaluated based onanalysis of sources of information. Never afterthat in Russian catalogues of historical seis-micity (including recent ones) has such ananalysis been presented. Very impressive is al-so the size of territory for which informationon earthquakes was presented. Only 80 yearslater in the USSR a large team from all seis-mological institutions all over the countrycould carry out a project in which spatialframes might be compared with the area cov-ered by the catalogue of Mushketov and Orlov.

The catalogue is descriptive. Sources ofeach entry are given. This was the first cata-logue of Russian Empire earthquakes, so theauthors were not able to copy and post entriesfrom other earlier published catalogues (ex-cept for earthquakes in boundary regions). Asa result, the work is based mainly on primarysources (archive materials, newspapers, etc.).

the destructive consequences of earthquakes,with the idea of establishing permanent seismicobservations, even money has been found to alle-viate the results of natural calamity. But, alas, re-gardless of such temporary excitation, earthquakestudy in Russia did not go forward, and interesttoward them gradually subsides, as soon as un-derground shocks calm down». The goal of thecatalogue was formulated by the same authors asfollows: «Protection from earthquakes is impos-sible without knowledge of their geographicaldistribution». (Note that here and elsewhere cita-tions and descriptions in English are translatedfrom Russian by the author).

It is not by chance that the Imperial RussianGeographical Society became the sponsor andorganiser of the seismological studies. So, thisperiod of pre-instrumental stage we can alsocall the period of geographical seismology.

Mushketov and Orlov (1893) discussed theproblem of catalogue completeness. They

Fig. 3. Example of documenting macroseismic effects on natural environment (photo from Mushketov, 1890).Arrows point the edges of the landslide.

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But this was not a special goal of compilers:when it was possible to use information frompublished catalogues (Abich, 1882; Perrey,1843; Mallet and Mallet, 1858) they did.

The milestone achievements of this stageare comprehensive studies of contemporarystrong earthquakes and compilation of the firstdescriptive earthquake catalogue of the Russ-ian Empire. It is natural to put the end of thepreinstrumental stage in 1902, when in St. Pe-tersburg the Permanent Central SeismologicalCommission (PCSC) had been established themain goal of which was organisation of instru-mental observations.

3.2. Early instrumental stage (1902-1914)

Before the foundation of PCSC, the Tempo-rary Seismological Commission acted for oneyear using as a model the corresponding Britishservice. Since 1902 annual bulletins have beenpublished. The first one included data from fiveseismic stations (Irkutsk, Nikolaev, Tashkent,

Tiflis, Yurev) and from two astronomic obser-vatories where seismological observations werecarried out (Kharkov and Pavlovsk) (Levitski,1902). The instrumental observations werestarted by specialists who had great experiencein macroseismic investigations. Probably be-cause of that, macroseismic and instrumentaldata were put in bulletins together. This reflectsthe assumption of the fact, that the object ofstudy – earthquake – is unique, so for its com-prehensive understanding it is necessary to de-scribe different manifestations of the events, in-cluding macroseismic effects. Alas, such an«integrated» understanding of the problem wassoon lost: seismologists had an impression(partly illusionary) that the instrumental dataare much more accurate and absolutely suffi-cient for comprehensive earthquake investiga-tion. When the changes in PCSC administrationin 1912 macroseismic information had a sup-plementary role.

The most important achievement at thisstage of earthquake study was in putting theinstrumental and macroseismic data collec-

Region / Country Year of first entry

Year from whichregular information

is available

Total event number

Event number in regular part

China 596 B.C. 1485 710 558

Eastern Siberia 1700 1700 549 549

Western Siberia 1734 1761 36 35

Caucasus 715 1801 590 555

Central Asia together with Bukharaand Khiva 1716 1820 202 200

North of European Russia 1670 1742 27 26

Urals 1788 1788 20 20

European Russia 1000 1807 148 111

Turkish and Persian territories adjacent to Caucasus

1843 1843 121 121

Table IV. Evaluation of data completeness of the earthquake catalogue from Mushketov and Orlov (1893).

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tion, systematisation, conservation and distri-bution on a regular basis. As an end of thestage, the year 1914 could be pointed whenthe sequence of political and social shocksfollowed: World War I, Revolutions, CivilWar, which practically blocked earthquakestudies in Russia up to mid 1920s. We cancall the period 1914-1925 as an empty one forRussian seismology.

3.3. Regional stage (1925-1961)

Because of hard socio-economic situation(also, probably, because of the absence of aleader) it was impossible to organise large All-Union projects comparable spatially with theMushketov and Orlov catalogue. But interest inseismic history in mid 1920s was very high. Itwas warmed by occurrence of such destructiveearthquakes as Leninakan (1926) and Crimea(1927). The investigations of that time were ona regional scale. A number of catalogues on theseismic history of Armenia (Stepanyan, 1942),Azerbaijan (Malinovskiy, 1935), Lesser Cau-casus (Bius, 1948), Turkmenia (Gorshkov,1947) and many others had been compiled. Asan example of regional catalogue, publicationof Bius (1948) is presented.

Bius (1948) is a descriptive catalogue,though it already contains the very first steptoward parameterisation. Earthquake parame-ters are not determined, but for many cases in-tensities in localities are evaluated in degreesof macroseismic scale. Bius used the MCS in-tensity scale, a description of which he includ-ed in the Introduction. This was the mostwidely used scale in the 1940s. Macroseismicscales are an important part of quantitative de-scription in earthquake studies; their develop-ment is an inherent and essential part of thehistory of earthquake studies. But this is sucha huge and specific problem that requires aspecial analysis in separate paper: here we willonly mention which scales were used in par-ticular studies.

At this stage, investigators met severalproblems, hard for historical seismology alsotoday. Bius put in the introduction to the cat-alogue a table of localities, which had been

renamed for political reasons (first of all –because of the revolution of 1917). This isanother example of how tightly the geopolit-ical and socio-cultural background in thecountry is linked to studies of past earth-quakes. To give an impression of the problema table from Bius (1948) is reproduced here(table V). It has to be stressed that these arerenamings of localities only in Lesser Cauca-sus before 1948 (and, as pointed by Bius, thelist is not complete even for them). Since thattimes at least three waves of renamings havepassed: today only very few localities carrythe same name as is written in column «Mod-ern name» of table V. A lot of names in orig-inal sources cannot be identified today.

Sources are given for each entry in thecatalogue. Using primary sources was notconsidered something of special importance.Because the time before 1887 is covered bythe Mushketov and Orlov catalogue, it com-prises the basic (and often the single) sourceof information for earthquakes of that time.But for a later time Bius had to work mainlywith primary sources (there were no pub-lished catalogues, except those of Stepanyan(1942) and Malinovskiy (1935) from wheredata on Armenian and Azerbaijan earth-quakes could be copied).

The main achievement of this stage wascompilation of several regional catalogues.They guarantee (as much, as they could) con-tinuity of macroseismic information accumu-lation, which was started by Mushketov andOrlov in the 1850s. The basis for the nextstage of earthquake study was formed. Theproblem appeared in this stage is related tothe scale level of works. In each region, datawas collected, systemised and analysed ac-cording to different procedures. It leads to ac-cumulation of inhomogeneous materials(though, rather homogeneous within the sameregion). The end of this stage is marked bypublication by Shebalin (1961) of the papertitled «Intensity, magnitude and source depthof earthquakes» in the first issue of «Earth-quakes in the USSR» which later on becameannual. From this publication started the eraof parametric macroseismic catalogues inRussia.

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Modern name Old name/names

Agara TanatubaniAlabashly KaraeryAragats AlagezArbat PerekeshkulBogdanovka KhojabekiGavazy Upper BezhanyGashperdy AkhakhibulaGegechkori Martvili; NaogaleviGoris GerusyDmitrovka SalimErevan Erivan’Ijevan KaravansarayKalinino VorontsovkaKaradonly BagramtapaKaryagino Karabukag; SardarKirovabad Gyanja; Elisavetpol’Kirovakan Big KarakilisKrasnye Kolodtsy Tsarskie KolodtsyKrasnoselsk Krasnoe Selo; MikhalovkaKulevi Redut KaleMaylya Kumani (island)Leninakan AleksanropolLikhi VarvatinoBolnisi Luksemburg; EkaterinenfeldMartuni KhonashenMakharadze OzurgetiMayakovskiy Bagdadi

Modern name Old name/names

Mikha Tsakhakaya AkhalsenakiMikuzani DzeganiNazarashen Gaji Nazar KuliOktomber SardarabadPsirtskha Noviy AfonRozenfeld MarienfeldSabirabad PetropavlovkaSevan ElenovkaStalinir TskhinvaliStepanavan JelaloglyStepanakert KhankendyTabatskuri KizilkilisaTbilisi TiflisTejisi MinasaskendKhanlar Elenendorf; EleninoKharagouli BelogoryKhashuri MikhailovoKhilly Bozh’i PromyslaTsalka BarmaksizTsebelda ZalharovkaTsulukidzhe KhoniChaikend MikhailovkaShamkhor Annenfeld; AnninoShorzha NadezhdinoShaumyany ShulaveryShroma Mikel Gabriel

problem is in a reasonable evaluation of ac-curacy of parameterisation. The most com-plete realisation of this principle is found inone of the largest seismological projects inthe USSR – (Kondorskaya and Shebalin,1977). An American version of the cataloguewas published in 1982 (Kondorskaya andShebalin, 1982) which included correctionsand addenda to the Russian edition made bycatalogue editors. This publication is consid-ered a most prominent achievement of thisstage and, at the same time, it marks the endof the stage.

3.4. Parametric stage (1962-1982)

The paper by Shebalin (1961) not onlysuggested a set of formulae (macroseismicfield equations) which can be used to deter-mine earthquake parameters based on initialmacroseismic information but also formulat-ed ideology of parametric catalogue compila-tion. The basic principle of the ideology wasthe following: any communication on anearthquake, regardless to its completenessand reliability, can and must be parame-terised into the catalogue entry. The only

Table V. List of renamed localities in the region of Lesser Caucasus from Bius (1948).

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From the previous stage the catalogue in-herited the regional principle of organisation: infact, under one cover page are published 14 cat-alogues, each of them has its own team of com-pilers and editors and separate list of sources.Nevertheless, chief editors were able to estab-lish a high level of standardisation in data pro-cessing and presentation of results. The cata-logue has a general introduction, parametricpart, textual descriptions of the most importantevents, list of sources. As a supporting datasetcompilers prepared an «Atlas of isoseismals»(Shebalin, 1974) also compiled according to theregional principle, and never published because

of financial and organizational problems. Allthe intensities in Kondorskaya and Shebalin(1982) and in Shebalin (1974) are given in theMSK64 scale.

Catalogue format and structure are shownfor the case of the 31 December 1899 Akhal-kalak earthquake. It is the largest seismicevent of Javakhet Highland. Information onthe Akhalkalak earthquake is presented in themost complete form: its parametric entry andtextual description are shown in fig. 4a,b, anisoseismal map is plotted in the above men-tioned, unpublished Atlas (fig. 5). Such cata-logue format and structure present complete

Fig. 4a,b. Information on 31 December 1899, Akhalkalak earthquake in Kondorskaya and Shebalin (1982):a) parametric entry with remarks and b) description of macroseismic effects, referring to Bius (1948) as its source.

a

b

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information on earthquake and support para-meterisation at least for the major events inthe given seismotectonic region. The most re-markable achievement of the «total parame-terisation principle» was in transformation ofmacroseismology from a descriptive supple-mentary seismological discipline into one ofthe basic methods for quantitative seismichazard assessment.

3.5. Modern stage (1982-2002)

During the modern stage, earthquakestudies in the USSR developed in two maindirections: extensive (compilation of cata-logues for large areas without giving much

importance to the study of single entries) andintensive (detailed comprehensive analysisof the major earthquakes). Extensive studiesrelated to large international and Russianprojects (Global Seismic Hazard AssessmentProgram – Shebalin and Tatevossian, 1997;Seismic Zoning of Northern Eurasia – Ulo-mov, 1993). Any essentially new ideas andmethods of catalogue compilation were notdeveloped within the extensive approach.Some corrections of parameters were made;false events excluded and omitted onesadded in earlier published catalogues. Usual-ly this was done without referring to newlyfound original sources of information, so, of-ten it is impossible to guess the reasons forcorrections (or, rather, changes). Intensive

Fig. 5. Isoseismal map of 31 December 1899, Akhalkalak earthquake from unpublished Atlas prepared in1974 as supporting dataset for Kondorskaya and Shebalin (1982). According to the legend it is based on datafrom Bius (1948).

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Fig. 6. Chronological scheme (reference-tree) of sources from Kondorskaya and Shebalin (1982) on 31 De-cember 1899, Akhalkalak earthquake compiled in Tatevossian et al. (1997). The catalogue of Bius (1948), whichwas the basic source for isoseismal map compilation, is shown in a bold rectangle; in a dashed rectangle is She-balin (1974), which is a ghost root for the catalogue entry; EQ indicates the earthquake origin time; in oval areenclosed sources, which represent primary materials.

studies were based on understanding of thecrucial importance of quality and reliabilityof information sources on historical earth-quakes. Most remarkably these ideas wereformulated within the frames of the interna-tional project Basic European EarthquakeCatalogue and Database (Stucchi et al.,2001). According to them the procedure ofearthquake parameterisation has to startfrom analysis of sources of information donefollowing rigorous historical methods. Pro-cedure of parameterisation itself must be ab-solutely clear and transparent. Cited sourcesin the reference list have to be the ones real-ly used for parameter determination and notjust copied and passed from other publica-tions. As an example of study in Russia doneaccording to these standards we will present

the paper on the Akhalkalak earthquake (Tat-evossian et al., 1997). This demonstrates theproblems which can arise from a too activeimplementation of the total parameterisationprinciple.

Figure 6 from Tatevossian et al. (1997) il-lustrates the chronology of sources given inKondorskaya and Shebalin (1982) for theAkhalkalak earthquake. The list of sourcesincludes publications based on field expedi-tions organised immediately after the earth-quake in its epicentral area and several latercompilations, many of which do not containreferences at all. The list even points tosources published before (!) the occurrenceof the Akhalkalak earthquake (obvious mis-prints). Isoseismal map plotted based on datafrom primary sources is given in fig. 7 (Tat-

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evossian et al., 1997). Comparison with themap in fig. 5 demonstrates that only a smallportion of data accessible for this earthquakewas used in Kondorskaya and Shebalin(1982), which decreases the accuracy and re-liability of parameter assessment.

4. Specific problems of earthquake studiesin the Russian platform

In case of low seismic activity, the role ofeach event in the catalogue becomes crucial forseismic hazard evaluation. This is also true forthe Russian platform. The question arises ofhow accurate and complete is our knowledge onseismicity of this large area where the majorityof the Russian population live today.

The Salsk earthquake occurred on 22 May2001, in the southern part of the Russian plat-form (MS = 4.6): it was felt over a relatively largearea. The earthquake had the maximum observedmagnitude in the region throughout the wholeperiod of historical and instrumental recordings.The seismicity of the epicentral zone before 22May 2001 was represented only by two shockswith magnitudes 2.7 and 3.2 in 1984 and 1996correspondingly. A macroseismic survey of theepicentral area of this earthquake was done andits results are published in Tatevossian et al.(2002). Instrumental and macroseismic epicen-tres are in good agreement; the location error isless than 3-5 km. The position of the Salsk earth-quake is shown in corresponding seismic (fig. 8)and geotectonic (fig. 9) settings. Usually, earth-quake effects in large cities and administrative

Fig. 7. Isoseismal map of 31 December 1899, Akhalkalak earthquake compiled by N.V. Shebalin and N.G. Mokrushina based on materials from primary sources - see the scheme in fig. 5 (from Tatevossian et al., 1997).

825


Fig. 8. Seismic setting of the 22 May 2001 Salsk earthquake from Tatevossian et al. (2002). Earthquake epi-centres are plotted according to the Earthquake catalogue of Northern Eurasia (Ulomov, 1993) (circle size is pro-portional to earthquake magnitude).

Fig. 9. Tectonic setting of the 22 May 2001 Salsk earthquake from Tatevossian et al. (2002). Tectonic schemefrom Rebai et al. (1993) with simplifications: 1 – reverse faults (triangles point to upthrown wing); 2 – strike-slip faults (arrows show direction of motion); 3 – plate motion direction.

826

Ruben Tatevossian

Fig. 10. «Administrative» data filtering. Hypothetical event, which can appear in the regional catalogue after100 years on the 22 May 2001 Salsk earthquake, if the only information which would survive on that event willbe the one collected by Geophysical Service of RAS (Tatevossian et al., 2002). Intensities at the sites are givenaccording to the Geophysical Service, RAS.

centres attract attention in historical sources,though they might be well away from the epi-centre and zone of maximum effects. This dis-torts the figure of spatial distribution of macro-seismic effects. Such a distortion because ofswitching on the «administrative» filter can befound even when we are dealing with modernearthquakes studied by an official seismologicalbody. Immediately after the Salsk earthquakeGeophysical Service of RAS rapidly collectedinformation on its felt effects (Geophysical Ser-vice of RAS, 2001). The data was acquired fromadministrative centres. The localities and intensi-ties assessed by the Geophysical Service areshown in fig. 10.

Let us make a mental experiment and as-sume that the only information which will sur-vive a hundred years after the Salsk earthquake,will be these rapidly collected communications.If the future seismologist processes these dataaccording to the modern standard procedures hewill locate the epicentre location 100 km awayfrom its actual site, deeper source (15, insteadof 9 km) and magnitude 5.6, which is 1 unitmore than it really was! And he will be satisfied

with the results obtained because the epicentrewill move toward the Stavropol Highland whereearthquakes of similar moderate magnitudes areknown (fig. 8). The location of a false event isalso in better agreement with the general geot-ectonic scheme (fig. 9). And he will be veryhappy, because only in a few cases do we havetoday such a lot of information for historicalearthquakes of this area: intensities are reportedin seven localities (fig. 10).

Those are the measure of distortions associ-ated with «administrative» filter. Another mentalexperiment can illustrate the effect of a poorlypopulated area. Imagine that the Salsk earth-quake occurred 200 years before its actual time,in 1801: which localities in this region couldhave felt this earthquake? Only one – Stavropol,which was founded in 1777! So, this event eitherwill be omitted in the catalogues, or located as amoderate event somewhere near Stavropol.

Another problem complicating historicalearthquake studies in Russia can be illustratedin relation to the Salsk earthquake – a problemof toponymy. During field observations of theSalsk earthquake the macroseismic group visit-

827


Tabl

e V

I.

Dif

fere

nt v

ersi

ons

of i

nter

pret

atio

n of

the

183

9 Fe

doro

vka,

even

t ba

sed

on d

iffe

rent

dat

aset

s:us

ing

com

plet

e de

scri

ptio

n fr

om p

rim

ary

sour

ce i

n Ta

tevo

s-si

an a

nd M

okru

shin

a (2

003)

and

arb

itrar

y cu

t out

text

fro

m s

econ

dary

com

pila

tion

in O

gaja

nov

et a

l.(2

001)

. Ide

ntic

al p

arts

of

desc

ript

ion

are

mar

ked

in b

old.

Publ

icat

ion

Oga

jano

v et

al.

(200

1)Ta

tevo

ssia

n an

d M

okru

shin

a (2

003)

Supp

ortin

g te

xt«.

..rum

ble,

wav

e-lik

e os

cilla

tions

,fa

lling

of

chim

neys

,pa

rts

of c

on-

stru

ctio

ns,

crac

ks i

n th

e gr

ound

,ve

rtic

al

and

hori

zont

al

disl

oca-

tions

of

laye

rs,

dryi

ng o

f sp

ring

s.70

hou

ses

wer

e da

mag

ed. A

ll th

eva

lley,

on w

hich

maj

or p

art

ofth

e vi

llage

is

loca

ted

was

sep

a-ra

ted

from

the

hill

foo

t an

d su

b-si

ded

rem

arka

bly

and

mov

ed t

oV

olga

...

Not

icea

ble

osci

llatio

nsan

d m

ovin

g of

the

gro

und

last

ed3

days

,th

en e

very

thin

g ca

lmed

dow

n an

d up

to

6 Ju

ly

(old

styl

e) o

nly

subs

iden

ce a

nd d

am-

ages

occ

urre

d fr

eque

ntly

»

«On

larg

e la

ndsl

ide

of th

e ri

ght b

ank

of th

e V

olga

Riv

er in

Khv

alyn

sk d

istr

ict w

ith v

illag

e Fe

doro

v-ka

par

tly s

ituat

ed o

n it.

Sta

te p

easa

nts

have

bee

n w

aken

on

nigh

t fro

m 1

6 to

17

July

183

9 by

sud

den

rum

ble

and

mov

emen

ts o

f th

e gr

ound

aft

er th

at f

ollo

w lo

ud c

rack

les

of th

eir

hous

es. W

ithou

t und

er-

stan

ding

the

reas

ons

for

that

they

run

out

in h

orro

r an

d sa

w th

at a

ll th

eva

lley,

on w

hich

maj

or p

art

of t

he v

illag

e is

loca

ted

was

sep

arat

ed f

rom

the

hill

foo

t an

d su

bsid

ed r

emar

kabl

y an

d m

oved

to V

olga

!C

onfu

sion

of

the

peop

le r

each

ed h

ighe

st l

evel

,whe

n al

l th

e m

ovin

g m

ass

star

ted

to w

ave

and

in s

ome

plac

es li

fted

and

in o

ther

s pu

lled

dow

n ho

uses

- in

a s

hort

whi

le th

roug

hout

all

the

sub-

side

d ar

ea w

ere

form

ed re

mar

kabl

e gr

ound

bul

ging

and

hol

es,v

ast a

nd re

gula

r for

m c

rack

s ha

ve b

uild

raw

of

terr

aces

see

med

art

ific

ially

mad

e w

here

wer

e m

arsh

es a

nd s

mal

l lak

es,h

ills

grew

,in

uplif

ted

part

s fo

rmed

hol

es w

hich

as

mos

t of

the

crac

ks f

illed

with

wat

er. T

he s

urfa

ce a

ppea

rs a

s an

uns

tabl

era

ft. N

otic

eabl

ew

avin

g an

d m

ovin

g of

the

gro

und

last

ed 3

day

s,th

en e

very

thin

g ca

lmed

dow

nan

d up

to

July

6 (

old

styl

e) o

nly

subs

iden

ce a

nd d

amag

e oc

curr

ed f

rom

tim

e to

tim

e.D

urin

g al

l th

e pr

oces

s 70

hou

ses

wer

e da

mag

ed:

som

e de

stro

yed

com

plet

ely,

man

y ho

uses

wer

ecu

t in

to s

ever

al p

iece

s; b

arns

sep

arat

ed a

nd f

ell,

shed

s m

oved

,all

cella

rs w

ere

dest

roye

d; d

estr

uc-

tive

forc

es w

ere

mos

t se

vere

in

thre

shin

g-fl

oors

and

orc

hard

s w

hich

are

nea

r th

e hi

ll. T

his

part

is

cons

ider

ably

hig

her

than

the

villa

ge a

nd d

urin

g su

bsid

ence

eve

ryth

ing

situ

ated

on

it w

as c

ompl

ete-

ly d

estr

oyed

. L

ucki

ly n

obod

y fr

om t

he v

illag

e w

as a

vic

tim.

Frig

hten

ed b

y th

e fi

rst

dam

age

they

lived

all

this

tim

e ou

tdoo

rs a

nd o

nly

now

sta

rted

to r

epai

r ho

uses

and

com

e ba

ck to

live

in th

em.

Subs

iden

ce o

f th

e va

lley

is 1

1/2

vers

ts l

ong

and

250

sazh

ens(

*);

how

far

it

ente

red

into

the

Vol

gaha

s st

ill n

ot b

een

inve

stig

ated

. Tak

ing

into

acc

ount

how

far

fro

m th

e ba

nk V

olga

bec

ame

shal

low

-er

in p

lace

s be

ing

deep

bef

ore,

it ha

s to

be

at le

ast a

s fa

r as

som

e te

ns o

f sa

zhen

s.Fe

doro

vka

villa

ge i

s si

tuat

ed n

ear

the

big

road

fro

m S

imbi

rsk

to S

arat

ov 1

5 ve

rsta

bef

ore

Khv

alyn

sk.

Abo

ve th

is v

illag

e ar

e el

evat

ed ra

ther

hig

h hi

lls,o

n to

p of

whi

ch a

re c

onst

ruct

ed fr

om li

mes

tone

and

foot

from

diff

eren

t typ

es o

f cl

ays

and

piec

es o

f si

licat

e an

d lim

esto

ne r

ocks

. The

val

ley

on w

hich

vill

age

Fe-

doro

vka

is s

ituat

ed b

orde

rs w

ith th

e hi

lls f

rom

the

Eas

t and

per

man

ently

was

hed

by V

olga

Riv

er w

ater

s.Fr

om m

any

spec

ulat

ions

con

cern

ing

this

eve

nt,

the

follo

win

g ha

s to

be

men

tione

d:op

posi

te t

hepl

ace

of s

ubsi

denc

e V

olga

Riv

er is

har

dly

sque

ezed

by

its b

anks

and

it s

eem

s it

cann

ot fi

nd a

spa

cefo

r its

wat

ers

and

was

hed

out t

he r

ight

ban

k,ov

er w

hich

Fed

orov

ka v

illag

e is

situ

ated

; and

bec

ause

this

ban

k is

mos

tly b

uilt

from

allu

vial

dep

osits

,wat

ers

infi

ltrat

e be

twee

n pe

rmea

ble

and

non-

per-

mea

ble

laye

rs o

f gr

ound

mak

e em

pty

spac

es w

hich

wer

e fi

lled

with

the

desc

ribe

d su

bsid

ence

.»

Sour

ceC

ard

cata

logu

e (1

991)

Add

enda

to «

Sara

tov

Reg

iona

l Gaz

ette

»,15

Jul

y 18

39

Inte

rpre

tatio

nI

= 7

-8,M

= 5

.3,H

= 1

0 km

Fals

equa

ke:l

ands

lide

(*)

Rus

sian

old

mea

sure

of

leng

th,e

qual

to 2

.13

m.

828

Ruben Tatevossian

ed four localities named Veseliy. Results ofquery in World map database (Encarta WorldAtlas 1998) reveal 184 localities namedVeseliy, 26 of which are in the Krasnodar re-gion. If we add to this list also localities withslightly altered names (Veselaya, Veseloe) thenwe will get 280 items. Certainly this does notmake earthquake studies an easy task in Russia.

The problem of earthquake identification isalso very hard in platform regions, especiallynear large rivers. Usually, these are regions of ac-tive landslides and other exogenous phenomena,which can produce false earthquakes in cata-logues. This complex problem becomes evenmore complicated when data sources are usedimproperly. Let us consider the event on 29 June(17 June – old style) 1839 near the village Fe-dorovka (middle flow of the Volga River). Twosolutions on this event together with supportingtexts and corresponding sources are given in tableVI: the first interprets the data as a tectonic earth-quake with magnitude 5.3 (Ogajanov et al.,2001), the second, as a landslide (Tatevossian andMokrushina, 2003). The same words in both de-scriptions are marked in bold. The present paperis not intended to discuss all the details of the1839 event, just note how much more completeand detailed is the description in primary sourcecited in Tatevossian and Mokrushina (2003) with-out any omissions.

The description clearly tells that we aredealing with a landslide. Meanwhile arbitrarilyarranged cut out pieces of text enable us to sug-gest that the analysing event might be an earth-quake. Note also the year of publication (1991)used as an information source of the earthquakein 1839 in Ogajanov et al. (2001). This showshow dramatically different conclusions can bedrawn concerning the same event when second-ary sources and arbitrary filtered descriptionsare used.

5. Conclusions

Russia became a seismoactive country start-ing from 1700s. More or less from the same timesocio-cultural conditions developed favourableas a whole for recording earthquake effects andconservation of the records.

Earthquake studies in Russia developedfrom compilation of descriptive catalogues to-ward parametric ones. The remarkable achieve-ment of the principle of «total parameterisation»was in transforming macroseismology from adescriptive supplementary seismological disci-pline into the leading quantitative method ofseismic hazard assessment. But uncontrolledimplementation of this principle together withinsufficient attention paid to the analysis of in-formation sources decreases the reliability of fi-nal evaluations. The following corrections andaddenda to earlier published catalogues do notchange the situation essentially. New perspec-tives in historical earthquake studies come frommore accurate use of primary sources.

Distortions, which come from a differentkind of initial data filtering («administrative»,«arbitrary cut out») can play a dramatic role inseismic hazard assessment of the Russian plat-form. This problem has a little chance of beingsolved without using complete descriptionsfrom primary sources in earthquake studies.

Since the 1960s historical earthquake cata-logue compilation was a part of seismic hazard as-sessment projects. This organisational backgroundis very unfavourable for earthquake studies: per-manent work on collecting and processing ofmacroseismic data is replaced by sporadic activi-ties. At the moment there are no current specialprojects in Russia for historical earthquake stud-ies. Some investigators are receiving contractswith organisations interested in hazard assess-ment, such as the Ministry of Atomic Energy. Themain interest is related to low active territories.The case of 1839 event illustrates one of the rea-sons for that. In no seismoactive region could suchlarge uncertainty in data interpretation be met. Ac-cording to one interpretation, the maximum ob-served magnitude is 5.3, according to another in-terpretation, there was no earthquake at all. Takinginto account the short potential duration ofearthquake studies in Russia together with pos-sible long recurrence times of earthquakes onplatforms, we can easily understand the reasonsfor speculations concerning the historical seis-micity of the Russian platform. It has to bestressed that the overwhelming majority of theRussian population live there. From a certainpoint of view, the Salsk earthquake (Ms = 4.6)

829


having the maximum recorded magnitude in thesouthern parts of the Russian platform, is moreinformative for hazard assessment, than, say,magnitude 7.5 in the region of the Kuril Islands,where the largest instrumentally recorded eventhad Ms = 8.4 (Shikotan 1969 earthquake).

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Max Stucchi, who initiatedthis work. It was partly supported by RFBR 02-05-64894 grant. This publication would havebeen impossible without discussions with andcomments received from N.G. Mokrushina, F.F.Aptikaev, Zh. Ya. Aptekman, and S.S. Arefiev.

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830

Ruben Tatevossian

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