Speaker
Dr
Pierre Alexandre
(Royal Observatory of Belgium)
Description
The seismicity of Eastern Europe before the 15th century is not well known because historical sour¬ces (annals, chronicles, etc.) are missing, except in Russia. Numerous claimed earthquakes in traditional com¬pilations were demonstrated as late forgeries in the study of Pierre and Dominique Alexandre (2012).
The first well known general shock is the one of June 5th, 1443. The former work of Labak (1996) is the first useful study of this event because it was realized according to reliable sources. But this author neglects or rejects some data – in particular the Silesian data – and so underestimates the area perceptibility of this earthquake. We drew up a new map of the 1443 shock of which the epicentre was localized in Western Slovakia. The other macroseismic datapoints are located in Austria, Moravia, Bohemia, Silesia, Little Poland and Galicia. Unfor-tunately data are missing southwards – in the present Hungary – due to lack of sources.
With regard to the earthquake of August 29th, 1471, we wrote in our previous study (2012) that this event took place in the year 1473, according to an Austrian source, the annals of the Melk abbey. But the discovery of a much more precise document modified our point of view: the date of 1471 is the right date. This new document is a very detailed account written by Thomas the Szekler, prior of the Preachers in Brasov (Kronstadt) in Transylvania. In our new map, the macroseismic datapoints of this shock are located in Moldavia, Transylvania, Wallachia, Bessarabia and Crimea. The epicentre is most likely to be localized in the famous area of Vrancea, as already thought by Tatevossian and Albini (2010).
Primary author
Dr
Pierre Alexandre
(Royal Observatory of Belgium)
