Abstract
This paper deals with non-instrumental seismology development in Bulgaria (the central-eastern part of the Balkan peninsula). The first steps and products of this scientific branch are discussed because they have traced the road of present-day historical seismology in this country. The sources of information on long-term seismicity are critically reviewed. Some recent studies, which contribute to an improvement of the supporting data sets, are also discussed. A special emphasis is laid on the rules adopted to solve different cases as well as on the aspects, by which our understanding of the seismogenesis throughout the present-day Bulgarian lands has been enhanced.
Highlights
IntroductionGoing through the 17 annual volumes edited by Watzof (1902-1923), one can find that even at his time Watzof was concerned with some important topics, considered quite common: «seismic centre» location (epicentre determination and source zones), density of observation points and territorial coverage (topics of great importance for both non-instrumental and instrumental data acquisition), accumulation of as many witness reports as possible from a given locality (statistical nature of modern intensity scales), etc
The beginning of Bulgarian seismology dates back to 1891
Time seismic history of the southeastern territory of Bulgaria, since the 5th B.C. (Case G): frequency of impacts from all earthquake sources (a); maximum strength per year in Site 1 - the strongest impacts come from local origins (b), in Site 2 - the strongest impacts being from the western Marmara Sea region (c), and in Site 3 - either from the western Marmara Sea or Edirne area (d); Site 1 to Site 3 are marked in fig. 1
Summary
Going through the 17 annual volumes edited by Watzof (1902-1923), one can find that even at his time Watzof was concerned with some important topics, considered quite common: «seismic centre» location (epicentre determination and source zones), density of observation points and territorial coverage (topics of great importance for both non-instrumental and instrumental data acquisition), accumulation of as many witness reports as possible from a given locality (statistical nature of modern intensity scales), etc. As a result of their efforts the scientific world received annual reports on earthquake effects in Bulgaria in the course of 74 years. Geophysical Institute’s archive since 1956; Macroseismic bulletins published (intensity-locality data plus some isoseismal maps). Watzof’s most important contribution to past seismicity knowledge consists in gathering data from newspapers and journals in the National Library, Sofia This data concerns Central Balkan earthquakes occurring during the second half of the 19th century (the first Bulgarian newspaper «Tzarigradski Vestnik» appeared on 3rd January 1848). Staiko Staikoff was the second to rummage for unknown earthquakes through ancient and recent literature, catalogues, periodicals, etc His compilation (1930), based on findings in Central European libraries, covers 375 earthquakes or clusters occurring all over the Balkans and in Asia Minor, rarely in Italy, during the time period 3th century B.C.-1885. That is why the compilation by Staikoff (1930) still serves as a starting point towards the data set improvement for some Balkan and East Mediterranean earthquakes
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