Catalogue Update Log
9 April, 2020: Version 7.0 released
Version 7.0 of the ISC-GEM Catalogue is the result of the 2nd year of the Advancement Project that began in 2018. Version 7.0 adds 595 earthquakes that occurred in 2016 with magnitude 5.5 and above plus continental earthquakes with magnitude 5.0-5.5. For the period 1980-1990, we added 2836 earthquakes that include both continental events with magnitude 5.0-5.5 and events around the magnitude cut-off threshold of 5.5 that were not selected before. In addition, we added 273 source mechanisms from the literature by continuing the work of Lee and Engdahl (2015). The list of publications used to retrieve direct seismic moments and source mechanisms is available at http://www.isc.ac.uk/iscgem/mw_bibliography.php.
Details of additional changes to the catalogue are listed below.
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We thank Max Suter for pointing out papers with direct estimations of M0 (hence of Mw) for the following events:
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from Doser and Rodriguez (1993), evid = 908949 (1928-11-01 Parral earthquake) has a direct Mw = 6.27 in place of a proxy Mw = 6.47 and source mechanism added;
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from Doser (1987), evid = 906944 (1934-08-16 Valentine earthquake) has a direct Mw = 6.28 in place of a proxy Mw = 6.51 as well as a source mechanism;
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from Suárez (2000), evid 882734 and 837720 have direct Mw = 6.4 and 5.62 in place of proxy Mw =6.36 and 5.86, respectively, and source mechanisms added;
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Updated location/depth/magnitude for the following earthquakes:
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from Martin et al. (2019), evid = 16957943 (1907-01-04 off coast Sumatra earthquake) has an updated direct Mw = 8.2 instead of a direct Mw = 7.8 from Kanamori et al. (2010). Event location also updated about 150 km Eastward (from lat = 2.42, lon = 94.26, depth = 15 km to lat = 2.68, lon = 95.53, depth = 25 km). The revised location is in line with the results of Martin et al. (2019) and their interpretation of this large earthquake;
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from Anderson et al. (1989), added direct Mw for eight major earthquakes (evid 16957987, 16957988, 16958175, 913745, 908552, 908823, 908920, 905294) near the coast of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Jalisco (Mexico). The magnitude changes are in range ±0.3 units. As a result, evid = 16957988 now is listed in the Main catalogue. In addition, for evid 16957987 and 16957988 the location has been revised 170 and 300 km to the South, respectively, and depth from 80 and 70 km, respectively, to 25 km;
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Evid = 16958007 (1908-12-12 Myanmar earthquake) has an updated location (about 29 km NNE) after adding arrival times from station ZKW and following a revision of the event after Di Giacomo and Dewey (2019);
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Evid = 912683 has been relocated 350 km South-west and depth (fixed) also updated from 15 km to 25 km. We thank Víctor García for pointing out the mis-location of this event;
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Evid 908489 and 908604 have an updated fixed depth of 80 km in place of depths of 15 km and 35 km, respectively. The locations moved about 35 and 87 km to the West for evid 908489 and 908604, respectively. Depth and location changes have been done taking into account the results of Jimenez and Ponce (1978);
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from Iosif et al (1979), four intermediate-depth earthquakes (evid 908373, 904861, 901664, 899085) in the Vrancea region have direct Mw. As a result, these four events are now listed in the Main catalogue;
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from Bent (1996), evid = 904623 has a direct Mw = 6.17±0.2 instead of proxy Mw = 6.27±0.2 and source mechanism added;
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from Bent and Helmberger (1991), three earthquakes in Southern California have direct Mw: evid 903010 and 900505 have Mw = 6.0 and 6.28 in place of proxy Mw = 6.1 and 6.5, respectively, whereas evid = 900506, previously in the Supplementary catalogue, is now listed in the Main catalogue with Mw =6.05 and an updated location about 80 km to the North;
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evid = 901696 (1940-11-10 Vrancea earthquake) has an updated depth of 150 km instead of 90 km and location ~11 km to the West. The direct Mw = 7.8±0.4 from Iosif et al. (1979) has been updated with a direct Mw = 7.74±0.3 from Oncescu and Bonjer (1997) and source mechanism added. The depth update is in line with the interpretation of the event by Oncescu and Bonjer (1997);
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from Bent (1996), evid = 899531, previously in the Supplementary catalogue, has a direct Mw = 5.74±0.3 and source mechanism added;
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Evid = 895445 (1950-05-21 Cusco earthquake) has been relocated with a depth of 10 instead of 100 km. The location moved ~12 km East. Not enough surface wave amplitude data is available to re-compute MS, therefore the event remains listed in the Supplementary Catalogue. We thank Léo Marconato for pointing out the shallow nature of this event;
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from Muller (1983), evid = 864118 has a direct Mw =6.1±0.3 in place of proxy Mw = 5.57±0.4, and source mechanism added;
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from Hanks (1971), evid = 875343 has a direct Mw =5.93±0.3 in place of proxy Mw = 6.16±0.35;
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from Raeesi and Atakan (2009), evid = 871982 has an updated direct Mw = 7.65 instead of a direct Mw = 7.2 from Hanks (1971), and source mechanism added;
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from Huang and Solomon (1987), evid 861576 and 844503 have an updated direct Mw = 5.8±0.2 and 5.70±0.2, respectively, instead of direct Mw = 6.3 and 6.0, respectively, from Tsai (1969). Source mechanism added for these two events;
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from Kao and Chen (1994), evid 857484 and 766673 have direct Mw = 5.83 and 5.89, respectively, instead of proxy Mw = 5.7 and 5.65, respectively, and source mechanisms added as well;
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from Forsyth (1973), evid 852214 has a direct Mw = 5.92±0.3 in place of proxy Mw = 6.21±0.31, and source mechanism added;
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from Quittmeyer et al. (1984), evid 851175, 849961, 849991, 844039, 765097 have direct Mw in place of proxy Mw values as well as source mechanisms added. The largest magnitude change, from 6.45 to 6.09, occurs for evid = 849991. In addition, for evid = 849961 the direct Mw = 6.5±0.4 from Brune and Engen (1969) has been updated with a direct Mw = 6.28±0.3, and source mechanism added;
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from Shudofsky (1985), evid 849441, 847524, 842196, 778530, 776171, 749720, 731621, 695596 have direct Mw in place of proxy Mw values as well as source mechanisms added. The largest magnitude change, from 5.53 to 5.07, occurs for evid = 849441;
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from Bergman et al. (1984), evid 851845 and 665450 have direct Mw = 6.0 and 5.7, respectively, instead of proxy Mw = 5.6 and 5.7, respectively, and source mechanisms added as well;
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from Quittmeyer and Kafka (1984), evid 849714, 770300, 770384, 736097 have direct Mw in place of proxy Mw values as well as source mechanisms added. The largest magnitude change, from 5.68 to 5.3, occurs for evid = 770300;
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from Bergman and Solomon (1984), evid = 849961 has an updated direct Mw = 6.6±0.3 instead of a direct Mw = 6.42±0.2 from Forsyth (1973), and evid = 766025 has a direct Mw = 5.54 instead of proxy Mw = 5.59. Source mechanism added for these two events;
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from Zhou et al. (1983), evid = 832769 has a direct Mw = 5.5 in place of proxy Mw = 5.83 as well as source mechanisms added;
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from Chen and Forsyth (1978), evid = 829308 has an updated direct Mw = 6.3 instead of a direct Mw = 6.4 from Molnar and Wyss (1972), and evid = 769977 has a direct Mw = 6.2 in place of a proxy Mw = 6.2. Source mechanism added for both earthquakes;
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from Chung (1993), evid = 798304 has a direct Mw = 5.36 in place of proxy Mw = 5.45 as well as source mechanisms added;
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from Priestley et al. (1994), evid = 794114 has an updated direct Mw = 6.36 instead of a direct Mw = 6.7 from North (1977). Evid 787393 has an updated direct Mw = 5.67 instead of a proxy Mw = 5.85. Source mechanism added for both earthquakes;
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from Abers and McCaffrey (1994), evid 777013 and 777043 have direct Mw (6.52 and 6.36, respectively) in place of proxy Mw (6.63 and 6.57, respectively) values as well as source mechanisms added;
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from Abers and McCaffrey (1988), evid = 766904 has a direct Mw = 5.27 in place of proxy Mw = 5.79 as well as source mechanisms added;
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from Nelson et al. (1987), evid = 774259 has a direct Mw = 5.34 in place of proxy Mw = 5.73 as well as source mechanisms added. Depth updated for evid 852398 and 598460 to 45 and 20 km, respectively, instead of 35 and 30.9, respectively;
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from Chen and Molnar (1983), evid 757320 and 726312 have direct Mw (5.42 and 5.16, respectively) in place of proxy Mw (5.78 and 5.37, respectively) values as well as source mechanisms added;
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from Zheng and Suzuki (1993), evid = 772832 (1972-06-24 Hindu-Kush region earthquake) has a direct Mw = 6.18 in place of a proxy Mw = 6.31 as well as source mechanism added;
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from Singh and Wyss (1976), evid = 757676 (1973-08-28 Puebla earthquake) has a direct Mw = 7.05 and it is now listed in the main catalogue;
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Evid = 745522 and 824904 have an updated direct Mw = 6.55 and 6.51, respectively, instead of 6.4 after correcting typos in the seismic moment originally inserted from Huang and Chen (1986) and Chung and Kanamori (1980);
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from Estabrook et al. (1992), evid = 647474 has a direct Mw = 5.24 in place of a proxy Mw = 5.52 as well as source mechanism added;
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from Xu and Chen (1997), evid = 185689 has a direct Mw = 5.57 in place of a proxy Mw = 5.84 as well as source mechanism added;
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Events added following the review of the bibliographic search by Lee and Engdahl (2015):
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from Assumpção and Suárez (1988), added evid = 873757 (1963-12-14 Brazil earthquake) with direct Mw = 5.27. Source mechanisms added as well;
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from Bergman and Solomon (1984), added three earthquakes (evid 829246, 829275, 797139) in the Chagos Archipelago region with direct Mw in the range 5.4-5.65. Source mechanisms added as well;
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from Quittmeyer and Kafka (1984), added five earthquakes (evid 872915, 823471, 814962, 756024, 760813) in Southern / off coast Pakistan with direct Mw in the range 5.0-5.7. Source mechanisms added as well;
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from Forsyth (1973), added three earthquakes (evid 841093, 808352, 804292) in the East Pacific Rise / Galapagos with direct Mw in the range 5.7-6.2. Source mechanisms added as well;
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from Shudofsky (1985), added evid = 830319 (1967-10-14 Kenya earthquake) with direct seismic moment (Mw = 5.17) as well as its source mechanism;
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from Grimison and Chen (1988), added evid = 732326 (1975-02-15 Mozambique Channel earthquake) with direct seismic moment (Mw = 5.38) as well as its source mechanism;
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from Petroy and Wiens (1989), added evid = 649381 (1980-03-11 South Indian Ocean earthquake) with direct seismic moment (Mw = 5.42) as well as its source mechanism;
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Updates following the review done in the Rebuild project (Storchak et al., 2017):
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updated the magnitude for three earthquakes (evid 395561, 395562, 395579) of the 1989 Afar sequence. The proxy Mw values are now based on mb instead of MS and in the range 5.3-5.5 instead of 6.1-6.6;
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evid = 376632 has an updated proxy Mw = 6.02±0.66 based on mb instead of a proxy Mw= 7.13±0.34 based on MS;
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For close events 234119 and 234120 we have re-associated the GCMT solution from 234119 to 234120; evid = 234119 is now listed in the Supplementary Catalogue as its proxy Mw based on mb has high uncertainty;
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evid = 228648 has an updated proxy Mw = 5.8±0.58 based on mb instead of a proxy Mw= 6.60±0.26 based on MS;
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Deleted three earthquakes (430746, 396787, 505928) from the Main catalogue and one from the Supplementary catalogue (evid = 167106); these events are close in time to larger earthquakes with magnitude originally overestimated;
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evid = 1742706 has an updated proxy Mw = 5.5±0.34 based on mb instead of a proxy Mw= 6.1±0.2 based on MS;757676
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evid = 1841012 has an updated proxy Mw = 6.2±0.62 based on mb instead of a proxy Mw= 6.71±0.43 based on MS;
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evid = 7143736 has an updated proxy Mw = 5.3±0.3 based on mb instead of a proxy Mw= 5.8±0.4 based on MS;
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evid = 11122103 has an updated proxy Mw = 5.32±0.26 based on mb instead of a proxy Mw= 6.23±0.25 based on MS;
7 March, 2019: Version 6.0 released
Version 6.0 of the ISC-GEM Catalogue is the result of the 1th year of the Advancement Project that began in 2018. Version 6.0 adds 623 earthquakes that occurred in 2015 with magnitude 5.5 and above plus continental earthquakes with magnitude 5.0-5.5. For the period 1964-1979 and 2000-2014, we added 7012 earthquakes that include both continental events with magnitude 5.0-5.5 and events around the magnitude cut-off threshold of 5.5 that were not selected before. In addition, we expanded the catalogue files to include also the nodal planes for GCMT events as well as source mechanism from the literature for those earthquakes with direct M0 from the bibliographic search of reliable seismic moments (see Lee and Engdahl, 2015). In total, we added 392 source mechanisms from the literature. The list of publications used to retrieve direct seismic moments and source mechanisms is available at http://www.isc.ac.uk/iscgem/mw_bibliography.php.
Additional changes to the catalogue are listed in detail below.
- Added eight earthquakes between 1960 and 1963 (evid 878345, 876851, 874714, 874971, 875265, 872097, 872340, 873113). Two earthquakes (evid 872097, 873113) have direct Mw from bibliography. The other six earthquakes have proxy Mw based on our revised MS obtained after adding surface wave amplitude from individual bulletins. Four evid (78345, 876851, 87878345, 872340) have MS below 5, resulting in the events being listed in the Supplementary Catalogue.
- Improved magnitude for six earthquakes occurred between 1956 and 1963 (evid 885232, 882347, 877400, 875806, 872357, 872989) thanks to the additional surface wave amplitude measurements gathered from stations in former Soviet Union. As a result, three earthquakes (evid 885232, 877400, 872357) moved from the Supplementary to the Main catalogue. For evid 885232 we also updated the depth to 35 km.
Updated location/depth for the following earthquakes:
- evid = 16958143 has an updated depth of 560 km instead of 350 km and location ~165 km to the North in line with the results of Huang et al. (1998). The event has also a direct Mw = 7.38 from Huang et al. (1998) and is now listed in the main catalogue;
- evid = 16958145 is an intermediate-depth event in Okal (1992) and the relocation has been updated by changing the depth from 35 km to 150 km; the epicentre also moved ~450 km NNW at the southern tip of the Kamchatka peninsula, which is closer to the original Gutenberg location. Note that the earthquake occurred in 1911 and the data available is sparse. Since the event with the location is too deep for MS calculation, it is now listed in the Supplementary catalogue;
- evid = 913953 moved ~40 km N and depth changed from 15 to 10 km. The location fits better the results discussed by Doser (1994);
- evid = 913126 and 911466 moved ~50 km to the East and ~130 km North-East, respectively, to better fit the results described by Doser (1992b). For evid = 911466 we have also added a direct Mw = 6.21 from Doser (1992b);
- evid = 913230 moved ~145 km South in line with the results described by Stewart and Cohn (1979) and Okal et al. (2011);
- evid = 910843 moved ~100 km North in line with the locations reported, e.g., in Badal et al. (2000) and Alasset and Meghraoui (2000, and references therein). The Mw proxy based on MS has also been updated to 5.46 after adding surface amplitudes from stations VIE, HAM and ESK;
- evid = 910544 moved ~250 km NE and depth changed from 35 to 10 km. This change better fits the results discussed by Van Dusen and Doser (2000);
- evid = 910569 (1925 Santa Barbara event) moved ~90 km E, in line with the findings of Hough and Martin (2018); still accordingly to Hough and Martin (2018), we updated the magnitude from a direct Mw = 6.8 by Hanks et al. (1975) to a proxy Mw of 6.56;
- evid = 909759 has a depth of 100 km instead of 15 km and moves ~80 km to the South in line with the results of Okal and Bina (1994). The change of depth does not allow MS calculation and, therefore, evid = 909759 in now listed in the Supplementary catalogue; in addition, still following Okal and Bina (1994), three earthquakes (evid 913090, 907752, 899527) in the Supplementary Catalogue that were originally shallow (at 35 or 15 km depth) are now deep or intermediate-depth events;
- evid = 906896 moved ~50 km SE and depth changed from 35 to 20 km;
- evid = 906183 moved ~65 SW and depth changed from 15 to 35 km. The new location better fits the available stations data (e.g., the secondary azimuthal gap improved from 180.4° to 95.8° and number of defining stations from 66 to 93) and is in line with the results discussed by Eissler and McNally (1984) and Okal and Borrero (2011);
- evid = 904745 (1934 Bihar earthquake) has been relocated ~50 km NE following the observations in Dunn et al. (1939) that suggests the occurrence of a smaller subevent preceding the mainshock of about 11 seconds, which caused some stations to pick the first subevent instead of the mainshock. We thank Roger Bilham (University of Colorado, USA) to bring this issue to our attention;
- evid 904392, 901447, 895531, 882341 have depths updated from shallow (between 10 and 40 km) to intermediate depths (between 90 and 130 km). These four events all occurred in Romania and are listed in the Supplementary catalogue (only evid = 901447 was listed in the main catalogue). These updates are in line with the results shown in Constantinescu and Enescu (1964).
- evid = 903029 moved ~13 km SW in line with results discussed in Okal (1999);
- evid = 902352 has an updated depth of 60 km instead of 25 in line with the moment tensor solution of Okal and Reymond (2003);
- evid = 902275 has an update depth of 150 km instead of 35 in line with Okal (1992);
- evid = 900505 moved ~95 NE in line with the results of Doser (1990);
- depth changes from 35 km to 10 km for evid 898384, 897530, 907095, 788372, 717700, 693569; depth change from 35 to 25 km for evid 575847. All these earthquakes are off-shore the west coast of Mexico;
- evid = 895348 (1950 Mondy earthquake) has depth of 15 instead of 35 km in line with the results of Delouis et al. (2002);
- evid = 887959 and 887963 moved ~17 km SE and ~35 km NE, respectively, and added for both a direct M0 from Doser (1992a);
- evid = 878424 (1960 Agadir earthquake) moved ~11 km NE and now is located on land to better fit the findings summarized by Meghraoui et al. (1998) and references therein. We also updated the Mw proxy to 5.91 based on MS from 24 stations instead of 5.84 based on MS from 3 stations;
- depth change from 50 km to 40 km for evid = 875869; depth change from 45 km to 35 km with epicentre moving ~30 km inland for evid = 848355. Such changes are made in line with the results discussed by Tichelaar and Ruff (1991);
- depth change from 35 km to 53.1 km for evid = 769592; depth change from 37.3 km to 60 km for evid = 761389; depth change from 35 km to 60 km for evid = 877305; depth change from 30 km to 15 km for evid = 746346. Such changes are made in line with the results discussed by McCaffrey (1988);
- depth changes following Kao and Peng (1991): depth = 25 km instead of 50 km for evid = 748383 and 36.4 km instead of 20 km for evid = 712852;
- evid = 904192 has an update depth of 100 km instead of 15 in line with Russo et al. (1992) and Doser and Vandusen (1996). The event is still listed in the Supplementary Catalogue;
- evid = 888446 has an update depth of 100 km in line with the results of, e.g., Brüstle et al. (2014) and Kkallas et al. (2018). The event is still listed in the Supplementary Catalogue;
Updated magnitude for the following earthquakes:
- evid = 852478 has a proxy Mw of 5.6 instead of a direct Mw =5.9 that was wrongly assigned to the event;
- evid = 819518 has a direct Mw = 6.32 instead of 6.5 due to a typo in the seismic moment originally inserted from Chinn and Isacks (1983);
- evid 514717, 510553, 508442 have Mw proxy based on mb instead of MS as a result of the review done in the Rebuild project. These events occurred in 1985 and remain in the main catalogue with magnitudes ~0.6-0.8 units smaller;
- evid = 7453151 (great Sumatra earthquake of 2004-12-26) has an updated GCMT Mw = 9.3 according to Tsai et al. (2005) instead of the standard GCMT solution. M0 has also been updated accordingly;
Added M0 from the literature for the following earthquakes:
- from Dineva et al. (2002), evid = 16957813 (Kresna 1904 earthquake) and its large foreshock (evid = 610326271) have direct Mw = 7.0 and 6.8, respectively, resulting in the events being now listed in the main catalogue. The locations of the foreshock and mainshock have also been updated about 28 km and 38 South, respectvely;
- from Caciagli et al. (2019), evid = 913466 has a direct Mw = 5.72. Location also updated ~11 km SSW.
- from Stich et al. (2018), evid = 911442 has a direct Mw = 5.4. Depth also updated from 15 to 10 km;
- from Susagna et al. (1994), evid = 911743 has a direct Mw = 5.3 and it is now listed in the main catalogue. Depth also updated to 10 km and location moved 47 km NNW;
- from Batlló et al. (2010), evid = 907482 has a direct Mw = 5.1 and location moved about 13 km NNE;
- from Okal (2019), evid = 900863 has an updated direct Mw = 7.96 instead of Mw = 7.6 from Kanamori (1977);
- from Wiens (1985), evid 899313 and 887294 have direct Mw = 7.36 and 6.03, respectively;
- from Batlló et al. (2008), evid = 894167 and 894355 have direct Mw = 5.2 and 5.3, respectively, resulting in evid = 894167 being now listed in the main catalogue. The locations have also been updated (about 37 km NE for evid = 894167 and 15 km NE for evid = 894355);
- from Okal (1992), evid = 865885 has a direct Mw = 7.16 and it is now listed in the main catalogue;
- from Alasset (2007) and Cara et al. (2008) , evid = 832236 has a direct Mw = 5.1;
- from Okal et al. (2016), evid = 905646 has a direct Mw = 7.25.
20 June, 2018: Version 5.1 released
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27 February, 2018: Version 5.0 released
Version 5.0 of the ISC-GEM Catalogue is the result of the 4th year of the Extension
Project that began in November 2014. We included earthquakes smaller than 7.5 during
1904-1919 from a multitude of sources that were not processed in the past. We also
included earthquakes that occurred in 2014. For earthquakes during 1904-1919 we had
to digitize a multitude of station data sources from the ISA BAAS, ISS etc. and
amplitude-period data added from original station bulletins to re-assess the
magnitudes (mostly MS). The procedures used to digitize the parametric data is
described in Di Giacomo et al. (2015). We did not add any station data before 1904
(basically only stations belonging to the Milne network are available, see, e.g.,
Adams, 1989) and, consequently, we decided to drop from the ISC-GEM catalogue the
ten pre‑1904 events listed before Version 5 and have the catalogue starting in 1904.
We thank Paolo Harabaglia from the University of Basilicata (Italy) for pointing out the direct Mw in the papers for the two significant earthquakes in Italy and the 29 November 1975 Hilo (Hawaii) earthquake. |
26 January, 2017: Version 4.0 releasedVersion 4.0 of the ISC-GEM Catalogue is the result of the 3rd year of the Extension Project that began in November 2014. We included earthquakes smaller than 6.25 during 1920-1934 listed in the ISS but not processed in the past. We also included earthquakes that occurred in 2013. The recent data were available from the ISC Bulletin in an electronic format, but the arrival time data for earthquakes during 1920-1934 had to be digitized from the ISS and amplitude-period data added from original station bulletins in order to re-assess the magnitudes (mostly MS). The procedures used to digitize the parametric data is described in Di Giacomo et al. (2015). Version 4.0 includes 484 earthquakes that occurred in 2013. For the period 1920-1934, we have relocated 3015 earthquakes and obtained new MS values for 2287 of them (available in the Main Catalogue). The events for which we could not re-compute the magnitude are listed in the Supplementary Catalogue. As previously mentioned, we collected stations bulletins from various sources that complemented significantly the original ISC inventory of station bulletins. On top of the extension work, therefore, we decided to add amplitude data from the newly available stations bulletins also for the earthquakes that were already available in the ISC-GEM catalogue in order to improve our re‑computed MS and, as a result, the Mw proxy. With the data newly available, we better constrained the MS for 685 earthquakes between 1920 and 1934 listed in previous versions by using more station magnitudes (e.g., 67% of the original MS was obtained from NSTA ≤ 10, for the updated MS this percentage drops to ~20%). Finally, we revised the hypocentre locations and/or magnitude of 16 earthquakes outside the period 1920-1934. Here we list in detail the changes affecting these events:
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28 January, 2016: Version 3.0 releasedVersion 3.0 of the ISC-GEM Catalogue is the result of the 2nd year of the Extension Project that began in November 2014. We included earthquakes smaller than 6.25 during 1935-1949 listed in the ISS but not processed in the past. We also included earthquakes that occurred in 2012. The recent data were available from the ISC Bulletin in an electronic format, but the arrival time data for earthquakes during 1935-1949 had to be digitized from the ISS and amplitude-period data added from original station bulletins in order to re-assess the magnitudes (mostly MS). The procedures used to digitize the parametric data is described in Di Giacomo et al. (2015). Version 3.0 includes 414 earthquakes that occurred in 2012. For the period 1935-1949, we have relocated 4403 earthquakes and obtained new MS values for 2719 of them (available in the Main Catalogue). The events for which we could not re-compute the magnitude are listed in the Supplementary Catalogue During the year we also received station bulletins kindly provided by the personal collection of Prof. N. Ambraseys, British Geological Survey (BGS) collection, bulletins from the Geophysical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, the Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Science in Obninsk and the EOST of the University of Strasbourg (France). Those station bulletins helped to fill some significant gaps in the ISC original collection and allowed to add new surface wave amplitude-period data for earthquakes listed in previous versions of the ISC-GEM Catalogue. With the data newly available, we better constrained the MS for 648 earthquakes between 1935 and 1949 listed in previous versions by using more station magnitudes (e.g., 42% of the original MS was obtained from NSTA ≤ 5, for the updated MS this percentage drops to ~5%). Finally, we revised the hypocentre locations of 92 earthquakes outside the period 1935-1949. Most of the revisions concerns depth amendments from the first step (EHB location) of the two-tier location approach before the epicentre is relocated with the ISC locator (see Bondár et al., 2015). These 92 earthquakes have occurred between 1905 and 2004 but mostly before 1979; 34 of them were listed in the Supplementary Catalogue. |
10 July, 2015: Version 2.01 releasedRemoved evid = 877612 from the main catalogue as the event is a documented nuclear explosion in Novaya Zemlya. |
19 January, 2015: Version 2.0 releasedVersion 2.0 of the ISC-GEM Catalogue is the result of the 1st year of the Extension project that began in November 2013. We included earthquakes smaller than 6.25 from the 1950s, listed in the ISS but not processed by us in the past. We also included earthquakes that occurred in 2010 and 2011. The recent data were available from the ISC Bulletin in an electronic format, but the arrival time data for earthquakes in the 1950’s had to be digitized from the ISS and amplitude-period data added in order to re-assess the magnitudes (mostly MS), using procedures described in Di Giacomo et al. (2015). Version 2.00, therefore, now includes data for 504 earthquakes from 2010 and 672 from 2011. For the 1950s, we processed and relocated 4156 earthquakes and obtained 2216 new MS and 12 mb values. We also introduced a new magnitude quality flag “D” for the Mw proxies with uncertainty larger than 0.7, which is now listed in the Supplementary Catalogue. In addition, since many ISS earthquakes during the 1950s when processed resulted in MS smaller than 5 (i.e, much smaller than our catalogue cut-off magnitude of 5.5), we have listed them in the Supplementary Catalogue rather than excluding them completely from the Catalogue, with particular regard to the importance of re-assessing the magnitude of earthquakes before the beginning of the digital era. During the year we also received station bulletins kindly provided by colleagues from Edinburgh, Eskdalemuir, Obninsk, Prague and Apatity. Those station bulletins helped us to fill some significant gaps in the ISCs original collection and allowed us to add new amplitude-period data for earthquakes listed in previous versions of the ISC-GEM Catalogue. With the data newly available, we obtained fresh magnitudes for about 200 earthquakes that were previously listed in the Supplementary Catalogue (Version 1.05) and added 237 new earthquakes between 1960 and 1963. Finally, we revised the hypocentre locations of 458 earthquakes in the catalogue, predominantly in remote areas, with 75% of depth changes within 20km and the rest within 60km. |
14 February, 2014: Version 1.05 releasedUpdates to the catalogue regard 1) updated location and magnitude of the earthquake in Sumatra that occurred the 6 June 1943 (evid = 899872), which moved from the Supplementary Catalogue to the Main Catalogue; 2) updated the proxy MW for six earthquakes; 3a) addition of an earthquake (evid = 603952288) in the Main Catalogue that occurred in Turkey the 4 December 1905 and 3b) updated location of one of its aftershocks (evid = 16957879) that occurred approximately five hours later. Details follow: 1) The location of the 6 June 1943 Sumatra earthquake has been updated and the epicentre moved to the North 40 km but most importantly the depth changed from 90 to a fixed depth of 10 km. Although the reported depth phase arrival times suggest that the hypocentre is around 90 km, we accept the 10 km depth since surface ruptures were reported (see, e.g., Untung et al., BSSA 1985). Hence, the event now moved from the Supplementary Catalogue to the Main Catalogue as with the shallow depth solution MS is available. From 12 stations we obtain MS= 7.8 +/- 0.1, which lead to a MW proxy of 7.81 +/- 0.25. We thank James Dewey (USGS Emeritus) for drawing our attention to this event. 2) the proxy MW for six earthquakes (evid 679878, 1656088, 1656090, 1728632, 13389548, 11911358) has been updated. With the exception of evid = 679878, the proxy MW is now based on mb instead of MS. The MS for those earthquakes was based on few stations with suspiciously large amplitudes. For evid = 679878 we obtained a new MS after correcting the surface wave amplitude units at six stations from micrometers to nanometers. The new six MW proxies are significantly smaller than the previous ones. 3a) the mainshock of the East Anatolian Fault sequence that occurred the 4 December 1905 has been added (evid = 603952288) after collecting arrival times from the ISA bulletin (61 arrivals) and surface wave amplitudes from four stations (GTT, LEI, POT, JEN). The event was missing due to a mis-association in the Centennial Catalogue between magnitude and origin time of the mainshock with one of its aftershocks; 3b) the location of the aftershock at 12h (evid = 16957879), which was already available in previous releases, has been updated. The previous ISC-GEM location was close to Aleppo, Syria, whereas the current location is much closer to the East Anatolian Fault. |
5 November, 2013: Version 1.04 releasedWe noticed that the Appendix is not recognised by our users as an important part of the ISC-GEM Catalogue. We therefore renamed the Appendix to be called Supplementary Catalogue. The terms of the license have also changed to reflect the availability of the ISC-GEM Catalogue to all parties. Updates to the catalogue regard 1) the proxy Mw for the 12 April, 1967 earthquake in the Leeward Islands region (evid = 836598) and 2) the GCMT solution for the complex event occurred near Potenza (South Italy) the 1990-05-05 (evid = 368231). With regard to the Leeward Islands 1967 event the original proxy Mw = 7.4 was based on the MS from three mis-associated station amplitude readings. The updated proxy Mw 5.0 is based on mb. We thank Uri Ten Brink from USGS office in Woods Hole, MA, for pointing out the excessive magnitude value. With regard to the complex Potenza earthquake of 1990-05-05, the GCMT solution has been moved to evid = 368231 from evid = 368230. These two events are separated by approximately 10 seconds and are interpreted as foreshock (evid = 368230) and mainshock (evid = 368231). For more details see, e.g., Ekström (1994). Since the magnitude estimates for the foreshock are uncertain, evid = 368230 is now listed in the Supplementary Catalogue. We thank Paolo Harabaglia (University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy) for drawing our attention to these events and Göran Ekström (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, USA) for discussing the association of the GCMT solution. |
11 June, 2013: Version 1.03 releasedUpdated the location for the earthquake occurred near coast of Venezuela the 1929-01-17 (evid = 907860) and the Mw for the 1967-07-30 Caracas earthquake (evid = 833882). The new location for the 1929-01-17 earthquake is about 98 km north the previous one and fits better with the tsunami observation for this event. The Mw = 7.0 for the 1967-07-30 Caracas earthquake initially adopted from Rial (JGR, 1978) has been replaced with a more recent determination of M w = 6.6 by Suárez and Nábělek (JGR, 1990). We thank Michael Schmitz and Herbert Rendon from the Applied Geophysics Department, Fundación Venezolana de Investigaciones Sismológicas (FUNVISIS), for inquiring about the location and magnitude of these earthquakes. |
1 May, 2013: Version 1.02 releasedUpdated are the Mw proxy values for 84 earthquakes between 1988 and 2009. The Mw proxies were based on excessively large MS based on the surface wave amplitudes reported by just a few stations or a single agency. The updated Mw proxies are now based on mb. In particular, we thank Helene Lyon-Caen and colleagues from the Laboratoire de Géologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, for pointing out the large Mw proxies for two earthquakes in Greece. |
26 Feb, 2013: Version 1.01 releasedUpdated the Mw and Mw proxy values of eight large earthquakes (evids 906508, 897799, 895348, 863756, 830410, 825732, 795586, 736783) following an additional review of corresponding scientific articles and correcting typographic errors in the results of the original bibliographical search for reliable seismic moments. In particular, we thank Dr. Alexey Ivashchenko from the Tsunami Lab of the Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow for pointing out an erroneous Mw for the Mondy earthquake (Baikal rift zone) of April 4, 1950 (evid = 895348). |
31 Jan, 2013: Version 1 releasedThis was the first public release of the Catalogue following the completion of the 27 months project. |