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QuakeFYI

歴史的地震検索

Search and filter the historical earthquake database by country, magnitude, year, and impact.

Analysis

歴史的地震記録の探索

歴史的な地震の記録は4,000年以上前にさかのぼり、最も古い記録された地震は紀元前2150年頃の中国のものです。このデータベースはNOAA国立環境情報センター（NCEI）の重要地震データベースから引用しており、死者、重大な被害、またはマグニチュード7.5以上の5,700件以上の地震を収録しています。地震学の計器観測時代は1800年代後半に始まったため、それ以前の記録は文献、地質学的証拠、考古学的発見に依存しています。

歴史的地震の研究は重要なパターンを明らかにします。世界の地震記録は、同じ断層系が数十年から数世紀の再来間隔で繰り返し大地震を引き起こすことを示しています。例えば、カスケード沈み込み帯は1700年にM9.0の地震で最後に破壊され、おおよそ200〜500年ごとにそのような地震を発生させます。歴史的分析はまた、地震による死者がマグニチュードだけでなく、建物の脆弱性と人口密度に大きく依存することを示しています。2010年のハイチ地震（M7.0）は20万人以上の死者を出しましたが、より強いM8.8の2010年チリ地震の死者は525人でした。これは主にチリの優れた建築基準によるものです。

歴史データからの重要な知見

  • 記録上最も多くの死者を出した地震は1556年の中国陝西地震（推定M8.0〜8.3）で、約83万人が死亡しました。その多くは黄土の崖に掘られた窰洞（ヤオトン）と呼ばれる洞窟住居に住んでいました。
  • 海底地震によって発生した津波は、歴史的に大洋に面した巨大地震の死者の大部分を占めてきました。2004年のインド洋地震（M9.1、約23万人死亡）がその例です。
  • 地震カタログは時間とともにより完全になります。1900年以前の記録は非常に大きいまたは非常に致命的な地震が支配的ですが、計器観測時代にはより小さな地震も段階的に記録されるようになりました。
  • 地震空白域（異常に長い期間破壊されていない断層区間）は、蓄積されたひずみがいずれ解放されなければならないため、警戒が高まる地域です。

主な用途

  • 学術、報道、政策目的での特定の国や地域の地震史の研究。
  • 長期的な地震リスクを理解するための地震再来パターンの特定。
  • 沿岸災害評価のための歴史的な津波発生地震の調査。
  • 建築基準と防災対策が結果にどのように影響するかを研究するための各地震の死傷者数の比較。

How to Use

  1. 1
    Set Your Search Filters

    Filter the USGS and ISC historical catalog by region (country, bounding box, or fault system), magnitude range (Mw ≥ 4.0 for complete global coverage post-1976), date range, and depth. The USGS catalog extends to 1900 for events Mw ≥ 6.0.

  2. 2
    Sort and Explore Results

    Sort results by magnitude, date, depth, or fatalities. Click any event to access the full USGS event page with focal mechanism, ShakeMap, PAGER loss estimates, and Did You Feel It reports if available.

  3. 3
    Export for Analysis

    Export filtered results as CSV or GeoJSON for use in mapping tools or statistical analysis. Note that catalog completeness varies by region and time period—pre-1960 catalogs are substantially incomplete below M6.5 in many regions.

About

Historical earthquake catalogs are the foundational datasets of earthquake science, encoding the accumulated seismic history of a region across centuries of observations. The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program catalog, the ISC Bulletin, and regional catalogs such as the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) catalog are continuously updated as new events occur and historical events are re-analyzed with modern methods. Catalog completeness—the minimum magnitude above which all earthquakes in a region are reliably recorded—is the key limitation for time-series analysis; completeness typically increases (improves) over time with denser networks and is spatially variable, being highest in Japan, California, and parts of Europe.

The shift from analog to digital seismograph networks beginning in the 1970s–80s dramatically improved both completeness and parameter accuracy. Modern moment tensor catalogs (Harvard CMT, GCMT, USGS W-phase CMT) provide standardized source mechanism solutions for all M ≥ 5.5 events since 1976, enabling global analyses of focal mechanism populations, stress field orientations, and tectonic regime classification. The IRIS SYNGINE and IRIS DMC provide open access to seismic waveform archives, enabling retrospective analysis of historical events with contemporary methods.

Open data policies have transformed earthquake science's ability to mine historical records. The USGS ComCat (Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog) provides API access to over 3 million events with searchable parameters; the ISC catalog contains 10+ million events since 1900. Machine learning approaches applied to these large catalogs are identifying previously undetected seismicity patterns, precisely relocating historical events using modern velocity models, and extracting fault geometry from waveform similarity clustering. The emerging field of earthquake forensics combines these catalog analyses with paleoseismic field observations, InSAR surface deformation records, and geodetic strain rate models to produce increasingly comprehensive seismic source models for hazard assessment.

FAQ

How far back does the historical earthquake record go?
The instrumental seismic record begins in 1900, following the development of the Wiechert and Milne seismographs. However, historical documentary records of earthquakes in densely populated regions extend much further: Chinese records document earthquakes to approximately 700 BCE; Middle Eastern records to around 2000 BCE; and European records to classical antiquity. Japan's catalog contains documented events back to the 7th century CE. These historical records allow paleoseismologists to estimate recurrence intervals for major fault systems, though magnitude estimates from pre-instrumental records carry large uncertainties (±0.5 magnitude units). The International Seismological Centre (ISC) bulletin, the most comprehensive global catalog, provides systematic coverage from 1900 with completeness above M7.0 and from approximately 1960 with completeness above M5.0 globally.
Which country has the most earthquakes?
Japan experiences the world's highest earthquake frequency among populated nations, recording roughly 1,500 earthquakes per year detectable by standard seismographs (and far more by Japan's ultra-dense Hi-net network). Indonesia, China, Iran, Turkey, and the United States (particularly Alaska and California) also rank among the most seismically active countries. By total seismic energy release, the Pacific subduction zones dominate: Chile, Alaska, Japan, and Indonesia collectively account for the majority of global seismic moment release. By impact on population, Turkey, Iran, China, and Italy have historically experienced the most damaging earthquakes relative to their land area and population exposure, due to a combination of high hazard, dense population in hazardous areas, and historically vulnerable building stock.
What was the most damaging earthquake in history?
The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake in China is estimated to have killed approximately 830,000 people—the highest death toll in the historical earthquake record. The catastrophic losses resulted from the earthquake striking a densely populated region where much of the population lived in yaodong, cave dwellings carved into soft loess cliffs that collapsed during the event. The 1976 Tangshan earthquake (China) caused an officially reported 242,419 deaths (other estimates suggest up to 650,000). In the instrumental era, the 2010 Haiti earthquake (M7.0) caused approximately 160,000–316,000 deaths, driven by densely built poor-quality construction on soft sediments near the epicenter. Economic losses are dominated by developed-world events: the 1995 Kobe and 2011 Tohoku earthquakes each caused losses exceeding US$100–200 billion.
How do scientists compile historical earthquake catalogs?
Historical earthquake catalog compilation is a multi-source integration process. Instrumental records from seismograph networks are processed by national and international agencies (USGS, GFZ, ISC, EMSC) and assembled into standardized bulletins with hypocentral parameters and magnitudes. For the pre-instrumental period (pre-1900), catalog compilers systematically search documentary sources: monastery chronicles, government administrative records, newspaper archives, scientific expedition reports, and indigenous oral traditions. Magnitude and location are estimated from isoseismal maps drawn from intensity reports, using regression relations that convert felt-area distributions to Mw equivalents. Paleoseismic data—evidence of fault rupture preserved in trenched sediment exposures—extends the record into prehistory but provides only magnitude bounds and recurrence intervals, not precise dates.
What can historical earthquake data tell us about future seismicity?
Historical earthquake data underlies all probabilistic seismic hazard assessment through several pathways. The observed frequency-magnitude distribution on a fault system constrains the Gutenberg-Richter a and b parameters, quantifying the relative frequency of small versus large events. Recurrence intervals for characteristic earthquakes on specific faults—derived from combining instrumental, historical, and paleoseismic observations—determine the long-term rate of large event production. Fault interaction studies use historical sequences to quantify Coulomb stress transfer between faults: a large earthquake alters stress on neighboring faults, sometimes bringing them closer to failure ('stress loading') and sometimes moving them away ('stress shadowing'). However, these inputs produce probabilistic forecasts with return periods measured in decades to centuries—they do not enable short-term deterministic prediction of specific future events.