1356 Basel earthquake

(Redirected from Basel earthquake of 1356) 6.0–7.1 Mw earthquake in Switzerland

1356 Basel earthquake
Basel earthquake as envisioned by Karl Jauslin

Local date	18 October 1356 (1356-10-18)
Local time	22:00
Magnitude	6.0–7.1 M_w
Epicenter	near Basel 47°30′N 7°36′E / 47.5°N 7.6°E / 47.5; 7.6
Max. intensity	MSK-64 IX (Destructive) – MSK-64 X (Devastating)
Casualties	1,000

The 1356 Basel earthquake is the most significant seismological event to have occurred in Central Europe in recorded history and had a moment magnitude in the range of 6.0–7.1. This earthquake, which occurred on 18 October 1356, is also known as the Sankt-Lukas-Tag Erdbeben (English: Saint Luke's Day Earthquake), as 18 October is the feast day of Saint Luke the Evangelist.

Earthquake

After a foreshock between 19:00 and 20:00 local time, the main earthquake struck at around 22:00, and numerous aftershocks followed through that night. Basel experienced a second, very violent shock in the middle of the night. The town within the ramparts was destroyed by a fire when torches and candles falling to the floor set the wooden houses ablaze. The number of deaths within the town of Basel is estimated at 300. All major churches and castles within a 30 km (19 mi) radius of Basel were destroyed.

The seismic crisis lasted a year. The modeling of the macroseismic data suggests that the earthquake's source had an east–west orientation, a direction corresponding with the overlapping faults on the Jura Front. On the other hand, recent paleoseismic studies attribute the cause of this earthquake to a normal fault, oriented NNE-SSW and south of the town. The significant magnitude of the event suggests a possible extension of this fault under the town.

Location

Due to the limited records of the event, a variety of epicenters have been proposed for the earthquake. Some of the proposed locations include faults beneath the Jura Mountains or along the Basel-Reinach escarpment. Another study placed the epicenter 10 km (6.2 mi) south of Basel.

Intensity

The earthquake was felt as far away as Zurich, Konstanz, and even in Île-de-France. The maximum intensity registered on the Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale was IX–X (Destructive–Devastating). The macroseismic map was established on the basis of damage reported by the region's 30 to 40 castles.

From this macroseismic data, various studies have been conducted to estimate the moment magnitude of the earthquake, which have resulted in various values of 6.2 (BRGM 1998); 6.0 (GEO-TER 2002); 6.9 (SED 2004) with a follow-up report suggesting a range of between 6.7 and 7.1; 6.6 (GFZ 2006); and a major Swiss study by 21 European experts, with American involvement, in which four sub-groups estimated values of 6.9, 6.9, 6.5 to 6.9, and 6.5 ± 0.5 (PEGASOS 2002–2004). There are also different opinions about which faults were involved.

Damage

The earthquake destroyed the city of Basel, Switzerland, near the southern end of the Upper Rhine Graben, and caused much destruction in a vast region extending from Paris to Prague. Though major earthquakes are common at the seismically active edges of tectonic plates in Turkey, Greece, and Italy, intraplate earthquakes are rare events in Central Europe. According to the Swiss Seismological Service, of more than 10,000 earthquakes in Switzerland over the past 800 years, only half a dozen of them have registered more than 6.0 on the Richter scale.

References

^ "1356 Basel Earthquake: A 650-Year Retrospective" (PDF). Risk Management Solutions. 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 February 2012. Retrieved 7 January 2015. The most damaging intraplate earthquake known to have occurred in central Europe
^ Centrale Nucléaire de Fessenheim : appréciation du risque sismique Archived 20 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine RÉSONANCE Ingénieurs-Conseils SA, published 2007-09-05, pages 12, 13
"Das Erdbeben von 1356" (in German). Altbasel.ch. 24 October 2006.
Von Waltenkofen K. (1357). Alphabetum Narrationum.
^ Lambert, J.; Winter, T.; Dewez, T. J. B.; Sabourault, P. (2005), "New hypotheses on the maximum damage area of the 1356 Basel earthquake (Switzerland)", Quaternary Science Reviews, 24 (3–4): 381–399, Bibcode:2005QSRv...24..381L, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2004.02.019
Meyer, B., Lacassin, R., Brulhet, J., Mouroux, B., 1994. "The Basel 1356 earthquake: which fault produced it?" Terra Nova 6, 54–63.
Meghraoui, M. (2001). "Active Normal Faulting in the Upper Rhine Graben and Paleoseismic Identification of the 1356 Basel Earthquake". Science. 293 (5537): 2070–2073. doi:10.1126/science.1010618. ISSN 0036-8075. JSTOR 3084555. PMID 11557888. S2CID 34852180.
Ferry, M.; Meghraoui, M.; Delouis, B.; Giardini, D. (2005). "Evidence for Holocene palaeoseismicity along the Basel—Reinach active normal fault (Switzerland): a seismic source for the 1356 earthquake in the Upper Rhine graben". Geophysical Journal International. 160 (2): 554–572. Bibcode:2005GeoJI.160..554F. doi:10.1111/j.1365-246X.2005.02404.x. hdl:20.500.11850/33737.
Fäh, D; Gisler, M.; Jaggi, B.; Kästli, P.; Lutz, T.; Masciadri, V.; Matt, C.; Mayer-Rosa, D.; Rippmann, D.; Schwarz-Zanetti, G.; Tauber, J.; Wenk, T (July 2009). "The 1356 Basel earthquake: an interdisciplinary revision". Geophysical Journal International. 178 (1): 351–374. Bibcode:2009GeoJI.178..351F. doi:10.1111/j.1365-246X.2009.04130.x. hdl:20.500.11850/21256.
D. Mayer-Rosa and B. Cadiot (1979). "A review of the 1356 Basel earthquake: basic data", Tectonophysics, 53, pp. 325–333.
Bradley, Simon (18 October 2006). "Switzerland prepares for seismic calamity". SwissInfo. Retrieved 19 October 2020.

External links

Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Diocese of Basel makes mentions the earthquake
Das Grosse Beben von Basel im Jahr 1356
Critical description of the earthquake and its consequences (in German)
Preparing a seismic hazard model for Switzerland: The view from PEGASOS Expert Group 3

v t e Historical earthquakes (1000 AD–1500 AD)
11th-century	1026 Manju 1033 Jordan Valley 1038 Dingxiang 1068 Near East 1088 Tmogvi
12th-century	1114 Marash 1117 Verona 1138 Aleppo 1139 Ganja 1157 Hama 1169 Sicily 1170 Syria 1185 East Midlands
13th-century	1202 Syria 1222 Brescia 1222 Cyprus 1269 Cilicia 1275 British 1290 Zhili 1293 Kamakura
14th-century	1303 Crete 1303 Hongdong 1343 Naples 1348 Friuli 1349 Apennine 1356 Basel 1361 Shōhei 1382 Dover Straits
15th-century	1420 Caldera 1428 Catalonia 1456 Central Italy Haowhenua 1461 L'Aquila 1475 Tenochtitlan 1481 Rhodes 1491 Cyprus 1498 Meiō
16th-century	1505 Lo Mustang 1509 Constantinople 1511 Idrija 1513 Marash 1522 Almería 1522 Vila Franca 1536 Xichang 1531 Lisbon 1555 Kashmir 1556 Shaanxi 1570 Concepción 1570 Ferrara 1575 San Salvador 1575 Valdivia 1580 Dover Straits 1582 Ancuancu 1584 Aigle 1585 Aleutian Islands 1586 Tenshō 1586 Lima–Callao 1596 Keichō–Fushimi 1590 Neulengbach

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