We are looking for a student to study the historical seismicity in the Alentejo region, with an emphasis on the Évora district.

It is well known that large earthquakes happened in the past on the SW margin of Portugal and were strongly felt in Lisbon and in its surrounding region (in 1755, moment magnitude Mw ~8.5 and on Feb. 28 1969, Mw=7.3). However, moderate to large events (Mw 5 to 7) can also initiate in mainland Portugal. For the district of Evora, the oldest large (Mw>5) event that appears in the historical catalogue (Martins 2001) goes back to the XVI century. The time-span of the proposed investigation therefore covers several centuries (roughly from the XVIth century to the middle of the XXth century) in the district of Evora, but reported events can be as old as the XIIth century close to Lisbon (see attached map).

In some places, the seismicity currently appears as clustered in space. One of these clusters is centered close to Nossa Senhora da Tourega (with 4 Magnitude 5 to 5.5 earthquakes from 1568 to 1968).

But the seismicity mostly seems diffuse. For example, a 5.6 happened near Aguiar in 1910. Another one is listed in 1909 just North of Evora, and a magnitude 6 is listed between Estremoz and Borba in 1910.

It is very important that we manage to better locate and assess the size of these earthquakes if we want to be able to relate them to known active faults in the ground, or, even better, to discover active faults thanks to these relocated and reassessed earthquakes.

Equally important to this project is how earthquakes from neighboring regions affected the district of Evora. This would help reassess the size of past earthquakes, and in which direction the ground rupture propagated. These two types of information are very important for earthquake hazard assessment. The Lower Tagus Valley and the Bay of Sines are two such active neighboring regions.

The student can choose to orient the subject towards the sociological, geographical or cultural aspects of the occurrence of earthquakes in the region. E.g., it could be interesting to see how the population was distributed and what the social tissue was like. A good starting point is probably a bibliography study at the Public Library of Evora and at the archives of some of the convents and monasteries which have operated in the past such as N. Sra. do Espinheiro convent, Sta. Clara convent, S. João Evangelista convent, N. Sra. do Paraiso monastery.

In all cases, one desirable output of this project will be a better location, timing, and a map of intensities* for as many of the M>5 events found as possible (whether it be thought to have initiated within the district of Evora or whether it was only felt there).

The interested student will work within the Seismolitos team of the Center of Geophysics of Evora and will get to learn the basics about what earthquakes are, and how to use the *intensity scale that was designed to evaluate damage and subjective feelings or observations of witnesses to try and constrain the location and magnitude of events.

Interested candidates should be registered in a Master's program. If he/she is from the EU, we will encourage the selected candidate to apply to the Fundaçao Eugenio Almeida for a MS fellowship of 12 months. Applications are due in February.

See: http://www.fundacaoeugeniodealmeida.pt/geral.asp?ID=9

Please contact Dr Delphine Fitzenz ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Prof Mourad Bezzeghoud ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) at the CGE / University of Evora.

References: EC project "Review of Historical Seismicity in Europe" (RHISE) 1989-1993, http://emidius.mi.ingv.it/RHISE/i_2vog/i_2vog.html

"The word "sources" itself may have a very large meaning, including architecture, iconography, casual pamphlets, printed chronicles and travellers' records, epigraphy, archives in a more or less wide sense. Indeed historical seismology should as much as possible make best use of different sources, for instance combinations of architecture, epigraphy and chronicles (antiquity, early Middle Age) as E. Guidoboni did for the famous 1117 Lombardy event, renewing its interpretation; architecture and archives, as E. Wechsler did so masterfully for the famous 1356 Basel earthquake, for the town of Basel; pamphlets and archives, as R. Gutdeutsch's team did for the famous 1590 Vienne event; early newspapers and archives, at least, for many 17th and 18th century events, etc. Whatsoever, the widest possible confrontation of sources, with an utterly critical mind, considering backgrounds and motivations, is a basic need for genuine historical seismology." Jean Vogt Historical seismology. Some notes on sources for seismologists.

Universidade de Évora
Departamento de Física
Centro de Geofísica de Évora
Rua Romão Ramalho, 59
7002-554 Évora
Portugal
URL - http://www.cge.uevora.pt

The attached map was produced with the composite seismicity catalogue compiled by Martins (2001) using GoogleEarth (and Earth Point Excel to Kml). 

The size of the stars scale with the unified magnitude. The large star just above the word "evora" is a magnitude 5.6.

  Candidatura para aluno de Mestrado Fundação Eugenio de Almedia: MASTER project - Earthquakes impacti