6th Colloquium on historical earthquakes & paleoseismology studies

The paleoseismological dataset of Switzerland

25 Oct 2018, 10:00

20m

Han-sur-Lesse

Oral Preference Session 2.2

Speaker

Katrina Kremer (Swiss Seismological Service, Institute of Geophysics, Sonneggstrasse 5, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland)

Description

Earthquake hazard models are based on data from the instrumental and historical records. However, in regions where deformation rates are low, the recurrence rate of large earthquakes may exceed the timescale covered by these datasets. Thus, it is crucial to collect paleoseismological information over longer timescales. In Switzerland, a considerable number of studies has been performed gathering information on possible prehistorical earthquakes. This study represents a compilation of existing paleoseismological data from the different research fields: Sedimentology – Archeology – Speleology – Geomorphology and Historical records. The raw data are homogenized into one database and will complement the existing ECOS database of historical earthquakes. This new database covers the past 20,000 years and reveals 15 periods with an increased number of paleoseismological evidences. The systematic collection and interpretation of paleoseismological observations proved to be a valuable approach for detecting possible large pre-historical earthquakes and helps set priorities for future research. These datasets might also represent valuable contributions for the next generation of earthquake hazard maps. In future steps, a comparison of the earthquake hazard model of Switzerland and the paleoseismological dataset for a “sanity” check of the hazard model is planned.