Earthquakes in history : ways to find out about the seismic past of a region

Earthquake research belongs to the most fascinating (albeit problematic) topics in the field of natural hazard research. In most cases scient ists are not able to forecast when and where an earthquake may take place, but only the approximate region and the probability, not the precise date and the magnitude. Geoscientists therefore by and large concentrate on assessing and mapping regions that experienced earthquakes in the past. As a consequence, the description of past earthquakes is of utmost importance for a reliable projection of future earthquakes.

This paper strives to offer a short introduction to the following aspects: historical earthquakes and their reception history, ancient attempts to forecast and measure earthquakes, early modern attempts to collect written information on earthquake events, early modern earthquake catalogues in Europe, the application of early seismometers, the expansion of a seismometer network, open source ways to collect earthquake information. The paper will concentrate on (but not limit itself to) German attempts in the aforementioned aspects, including a short overview of the current state of research. Of special importance in this context is the Bavarian BASE-project, which serves as a role model for a modern and complete collection of historical earthquake data.