The Garnì (Armenia) large earthquake on 14 June 1679: a new analysis

Abstract

The 1679 Garni earthquake was one ofthe most destructive seismic events inArmenia, and one of the most widelydocumented directly by Armenian sources,considering this is an area where historical documentation is, on the whole,rather scarce. Moreover, this earthquakeappears in the literature as the result ofvarious interpretative and research models,so there are contradictory assessments ofits impact and its parameters: itsmagnitude oscillated between 5.5 and 7, andepicentral intensity between VIII and Xdegree. Even its location varied by over40 km. This contribution aims to enhancethe acquired knowledge of this earthquakeby applying a methodology of analysis tothe available information that has alreadygiven positive results in historicalseismology in Europe. On the grounds of thenew sources and with a critical review ofpreviously known ones, the authors canprovide new and more accurate data on theearthquake, along with a detailed outlineof the characteristics of the buildingsaffected and the historical and demographicconditions under which the earthquakeoccurred. Moreover, the data has beensupplemented with a direct observationof the monuments still standing, thusrevealing some of the earthquake'spreviously unassessed damaging effects. Theauthors have clearly arranged the use ofdata pertaining to different typologies,maintaining the evidence of suchdiversities even in the evaluation of themacroseismic intensity. This methodologicalapproach has been adopted in order toevaluate the seismic effects in an areawith a low density of historicaldocumentation. As a result, the effects ofthis earthquake could be estimated at 34sites (of which 20 documented from coevalsources and 14 on the grounds of directobservations). For this event there isalso a good geological database regardingthe active fault of Garni. Hence, thisstudy has also represented a test forcomparing the results of the historicalresearch with the known geological data.