Lisbon Earthquake Research Articles

Environmental changes and historical occupation at Oued Laksar (Ksar Seghir), Morocco

Laksar is a small river near the village of Ksar Seghir, located between Tangier and Ceuta (Morocco), strategic points to control the Strait of Gibraltar over centuries. The river outlets at the western part of a sandy beach that can block the fluvial discharge in years of low precipitation/river flow.The area is densely occupied since the 5th century BC, during the roman period and Early Middle Age in the archaeological site of Dhar d’Aseqfane, located around 1 km from the mouth of the river. The coastal town of Ksar Seghir was founded on the eastern margin and was used as a shipyard for Moroccan dynasties after the 12th century. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal occupied Ksar Seghir to control the Strait and to increase its power in North Africa. After the Portuguese left the site remained abandoned. The present-day Moroccan village developed in the 20th century, first expanding on the western river slope and gradually encompassing the archaeological site.This work aims to i) characterize the environmental evolution of the Laksar River; ii) identify potential records of extreme events such as floods or tsunamis; and iii) explore the relationship between the landscape dynamics and human occupation.To achieve these goals, a ∼5.4 m long sediment core - KS1 - was studied applying high-resolution multiproxy analyses (X-Ray, magnetic susceptibility, sedimentology, organic chemistry and micropalaeontology) together with 14C dating to establish a chronological model.The sedimentary sequence corresponds to intercalations of fine sand and mud. Results point to deposition in subtidal conditions between the core base (ca. 2500 cal BP) and the 15th century AD (388 cm below surface). The dominance of marine foraminifera assemblages with high number of juveniles and high diversity index suggests an environment under open marine conditions during this period. Conversely, the low δ13C values, coupled with the presence of charophytes and Cretaceous, Paleogene and Neogene reworked calcareous nannofossils reflect the contribution of fluvial processes. The sedimentary record underscores fluctuations in fluvial discharge, beach morphology and marine influence. The accumulation of magnetic (heavy) minerals at the core base is the likely result of at least one high-energy event.Following the onset of Portuguese occupation of Ksar Seghir (15th century), the sedimentation rate increases, silting-up the channel margins. Deposition occurs under low subtidal to intertidal conditions. Foraminifera assemblages point to a low salinity environment; coarse materials are mostly constituted by minerogenic particles transported by the fluvial network. Changes in the sedimentary succession (heavy-minerals accumulation, higher marine influence and rip-up clasts) were detected between 219 cm and 140 cm depth below surface that, according to the age-model, overlap temporally with the Lisbon 1755 AD tsunami event (Great Lisbon earthquake).

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment of Lisbon (Portugal)

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake holds significant historical importance in Portuguese history. The subsequent tsunami resulted in extensive destruction and damage, affecting not only Lisbon but also other regions of Portugal, Spain, and North Africa. This significant and hazardous event led to an increase in awareness about earthquake and tsunami risks, not only within Portugal but throughout Europe. This heightened awareness facilitated advancements in scientific developments, including design codes, standards, and earthquake engineering. However, recent studies focusing on hazard assessment for Lisbon are limited. For this reason, this paper aims to present a comprehensive probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) for the Lisbon metropolitan area. The first stage of PSHA involves defining applicable and active seismic source models (area and line sources) within the study area. Subsequently, historical and instrumental earthquake records are collected to build a homogenized earthquake catalog, utilizing both global and local earthquake databases. Following this, the completeness level of the earthquake catalog is tested. By incorporating suitable ground motion models to the region and local soil characteristics, seismic hazard maps for various return periods and hazard curves in terms of peak ground acceleration (PGA) are developed. The findings based on the area source model agree with existing literature, indicating PGA values ranging from 0.3 g to 0.9 g, 0.2 g to 0.7 g, 0.2 g to 0.5 g, and 0.1 g to 0.3 g for return periods of 2475, 975, 475, and 50 years, respectively.

Advancing the understanding of earthquake risk in Portugal

The assessment of earthquake risk at the national scale is crucial for the design and implementation of risk reduction measures. Due to its location in the southwest of the Eurasian plate, Portugal is exposed to moderate to strong seismic events, such as the well-known 1755 Lisbon earthquake. We reviewed existing studies covering exposure, seismic hazard, vulnerability, and risk assessment for Portugal, and performed probabilistic seismic hazard and risk analyses for the country using new model components. These include a new exposure model developed for the residential building stock using the 2021 national Building Census Survey, a recent exposure model for commercial and industrial buildings, updated vulnerability functions for 116 building classes, and the recently released European Probabilistic Seismic Hazard model. The seismic risk results include average annual economic losses, fatalities, buildings with complete damage, and population left homeless. These results allowed the identification of the regions in Portugal with the highest earthquake risk, as well as which building classes contribute the most to the overall impact.

The Portuguese Court’s Acquisition of Musical Scores from Italy in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries and the Fundo do Conde de Redondo

ABSTRACT The assembling of a library of musical scores of Italian music and libretti was an enterprise undertaken by the Portuguese court throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The library served a practical need, especially in the wake of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, and expressed the court’s musical taste; as a result, it received significant investment. Information concerning the growth of the library can be found in previous work on the composer Niccolò Jommelli and his heirs, who were involved in sending scores of the composer’s music to Portugal in the 1760s and 1770s. Drawing attention to evidence in Portuguese royal household correspondence that has not been considered fully to date, as well as some of the scores today preserved in two Lisbon libraries, this article offers a wider examination of how music manuscripts came to Portugal from Italy between c.1770 and c.1820.

Space invaders? slavery, gender, and the remapping of Eighteenth-Century Portuguese imperial geographies

ABSTRACT This article explores the site of the Rossio square in Lisbon as a contested urban space between the dispossessed and the Portuguese imperial authorities over the eighteenth century. Focusing on the aftermath of the Lisbon earthquake, it examines how enslaved and freed women of African and Afro-Brazilian heritage from the Portuguese colonies used and reconfigured the Rossio through their direct confrontations with the imperial authorities. Reading against the grain of traditional manuscript sources, this article demonstrates how contestations of the Rossio not only illuminated and underscored the dependence of the metropolis on the labour of Afro-diasporic enslaved and freed women, but also enabled these women to create alternate geographies of empire and power that pushed back against imperial spatial constructions.

Computational Analysis of Tsunami Wave Behaviour for Three Historical Tsunami Events using T-Impulse Model

Natural catastrophes pose a serious threat to both human life and the environment because they are unpredictable. One of the most devastating natural disasters is a tsunami, and forecasting models are essential to preventing catastrophic damage to the environment and people along the coast. In the Impulse model, the generation of a tsunami depends on the impulse force generated during the event. Understanding tsunamis begins with simulating the tsunami generation process. This process involves simulating both the motion of the seafloor and the subsequent motion of the water above for tsunamis caused by underwater earthquakes. This modeling strategy can mimic all three stages of a tsunami: generation, propagation, and run-up. Three separate earthquake tsunami events—the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the 1964 Alaska earthquake, the 2004 Sumatra earthquake are each investigated in this research. To demonstrate its relevance to current events and various ocean locations, the results of these events are compared and confirmed with the observed data. Analyzing the parameters used in this modeling study and identifying the parameter that has the most influence will demonstrate their significance in tsunami generation. The seabed displacement profile, seawater deformation, changes in tsunami characteristics during propagation, the tsunami’s travel time, earliest arrival time, the tsunami wave height at the coast, and inundation distance are the anticipated findings from this study. The major objective of this study is to obtain the maximum and most accurate result possible using the fewest parameters possible.

A numerical methodology for estimating site-specific cascading earthquake and tsunami dynamic loading on critical infrastructure

A numerical methodology for deriving cascading earthquake and tsunami loading patterns for use in critical infrastructure design is proposed. Earthquake source parameters are first used to generate synthetic ground motion acceleration time series at the site of a critical infrastructure using an open-source stochastic extended finite-source simulation algorithm. Using the same earthquake source information, the tsunami phases of generation, propagation, and inundation are modeled using a coupling approach for determining tsunami wave forces. The coupling approach combines (1) a code based on non-linear shallow water equations solved by the Finite Volume method, which is used to capture the tsunami flow characteristics from generation through the inundation phase until relatively close to the structure, coupled with (2) an open-source computational fluid simulation code, which relies on solving the Navier–Stokes equations using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method. An appendix presents the validation of the numerical methodology through correlation of the numerical simulations with field data recorded during the 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. The methodology is then employed to characterize the ground shaking and tsunami loading patterns at the site of the container terminal of the Sines deep-water seaport in Portugal, when subjected to the historic 1755 Great Lisbon Earthquake and Tsunami plausible scenarios. For the site, the generated ground motion acceleration time series show peak accelerations exceeding Eurocode 8 design values. Tsunami flow depths and velocities were computed in horizontal and vertical directions and could be used in the assessment of the existing infrastructure or the design of the future expansion of the port.

Dynamic performance of the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba under different earthquake scenarios: The Abd al-Rahman I sector

The Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba is one of the most important monuments in Spain. Owing to its authenticity, its integrity and its influence on later architecture, it was declared as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 1984. The monument is located in Andalusia, in southern Spain. This region presents a moderate seismic hazard, and it is affected by two kinds of seismic sources: a) far away earthquakes of large/very large magnitude; b) close earthquakes of moderate magnitude. Particularly, the Mosque-Cathedral had to endure the well-known 1755 Lisbon's earthquake (Mw = 8.5, at 488 km) and the 1504 Carmona earthquake (Mw = 6.8, at 82 km). This research has analysed its dynamic behaviour under several earthquake scenarios: code-base response spectrum, previous historic earthquakes and fault maximum magnitude earthquakes. However, after the seismic hazard analysis and due to the lack of faults registered surrounding the building, no worst-case scenario considering the maximum expected magnitude has been found. Owing to the complexity of the building, this work has focused on the Abd al-Rahman I sector, which is the most aged part, dating from the VIII century. A refined 3D numerical model has been developed and calibrated through free ambient vibration tests. The distribution of the maximum amplitudes (internal displacements and absolute accelerations) under the different scenarios has been comparatively presented. Also, the seismic performance has been assessed considering the drifts and the damage expected. The results showed that the damage would be concentrated in the contact between the arcades and the courtyard wall. Also, the lower part of the North-South closing wall would be damaged. According to the seismic performance, the building is expected to present moderate damage. In contrast, the analysis of the drifts, according to the codes, suggest that the building would resist each damage limit. Also, it was shown that the far fault earthquake scenario is more demanding than the close fault earthquake scenario. Next, it should be noted that the behaviour of the building for a seismic action of 475-year return period is expected to be similar to the far-fault earthquake scenario. The most demanding earthquake scenario has been the 975-year return period one.

Ethical Growth in History: Good News and Bad

One of the things Rosen's very interesting and wide-ranging book shows is why history and the goal of moral advance in history have become so important. We want to believe in moral advance (I am shunning the word “progress” with its resonance of steady uninterrupted forward movement), but we feel incapable of affirming this. What the Lisbon earthquake did to the eighteenth-century versions of Providence, Auschwitz has done for us. Rosen cites Adorno to good effect.

Mapping of the seismic tsunami intensity along the coast of Martinique, Lesser Antilles

The tsunami hazard in Martinique due to local, regional and distant seismicity is investigated. Former deterministic scenarios are processed. They were proposed elsewhere based on historical records and the analysis of the morpho-tectonics of the area, i.e., two local subduction scenarios of magnitudes Mw 7.5 and Mw 8.0 representative of the local 1839 earthquake, the regional Mw 7.2–7.5, 1867 Virgin Island event, along with the distant Mw ∼8.5, 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The tsunami runup and currents are simulated and analyzed. Then, a recent tsunami intensity index is applied and discussed. The modeling of the regional 1867 scenario shows negligible impact on the coast of Martinique which could explain the lack of direct observations in Martinique. Despite a difference of one unit magnitude between the local Mw 7.5 and the distant Mw ∼8.5 earthquakes, it is found that their tsunami signature for Martinique is nearly equivalent. The local Mw 8.0 event thus controls the tsunami hazard in the island.In the case of this tsunami, whose source is at the east, the western side of the island is not impacted because of wave refraction. Eastward, the coral reef barrier also inhibits tsunami impacts in some sites. Interestingly, it is shown that most of the potentially inundated areas are mangroves that are already subject to daily tidal flooding and seasonal cyclonic activity. They represent an efficient protection against tsunamis. Four occupied locations are however exposed to severe inundation (horizontal penetration of hundreds of meters): Pointe Marin, Le Vauclin, Le Robert and, for the largest, Baie de la Trinité.In terms of current hazard, we have applied two simple procedures to identify sheltered areas for watercrafts: an integrated one, that is easier to use but less accurate, and a direct one, derived from the mapping, which is more complex to implement by end-users but of better precision and efficiency. A large tsunami intensity is obtained at the 4 sites exposed to inundation, possibly yielding severe damages on land and at sea, and which would be extreme at Baie de la Trinité. Even a distant tsunami could impact that site although to a lower extent compared to a strong local earthquake.

COVID-19 and Religion

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a social drama in which churches, government, and individual actors have played prominent roles. While neo-conservative evangelicals have resisted governmental and scientific overreach in the name of “faith over fear”, liberal religious groups have joined in government and medical efforts for the good of the commons, offered comfort and assurance to those suffering, and called for support of the poor at home and abroad. Religions have turned right and left, from apocalyptic “resets” of global order to new calls for social justice. In this context, the root metaphor of the epidemic has been called up as a historical construct that helps to conceptualize, analyze, and act upon the COVID-19 crisis. Searching the past helps us see that not everything about COVID-19 as a social drama is a new or unheard-of challenge. For example, there are new evocations of the black death of 14th-century Europe that became a crisis in the church, as well as the great Lisbon earthquake in 1755, which upended the confidence of the European Enlightenment. Another way to appraise the dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak is to call on the varied approaches characteristic of the sociology of religion, that is, to consider how ideology and belief are socially constructed in order to account for new intellectual responses to societal challenges. Does religion always produce the “collective effervescence” Durkheim posited? Does religious change always arrive downstream of cultural change, or can it also become an independent variable? This article attends primarily to the sharp responses of conservative religious expression in the face of attention-getting upheaval, which has readily translated into right-wing political action and electioneering. But the social uplift and altruism of liberal religion is not neglected either. Thus, this article provides an account of how science and governmental action have both been challenged and embraced in response to COVID-19. As such, it is not an empirical study stemming from new Pew-like social polling. Rather, it is a wide overview rooted in sociological methods and theory for tracking religion historically and presently in America in a manner that aims to inform a discussion of how COVID-19 has impacted religion and religious expression, and vice versa.

Common Mental Disorders in Smart City Settings and Use of Multimodal Medical Sensor Fusion to Detect Them

Cities have undergone numerous permanent transformations at times of severe disruption. The Lisbon earthquake of 1755, for example, sparked the development of seismic construction rules. In 1848, when cholera spread through London, the first health law in the United Kingdom was passed. The Chicago fire of 1871 led to stricter building rules, which led to taller skyscrapers that were less likely to catch fire. Along similar lines, the COVID-19 epidemic may have a lasting effect, having pushed the global shift towards greener, more digital, and more inclusive cities. The pandemic highlighted the significance of smart/remote healthcare. Specifically, the elderly delayed seeking medical help for fear of contracting the infection. As a result, remote medical services were seen as a key way to keep healthcare services running smoothly. When it comes to both human and environmental health, cities play a critical role. By concentrating people and resources in a single location, the urban environment generates both health risks and opportunities to improve health. In this manuscript, we have identified the most common mental disorders and their prevalence rates in cities. We have also identified the factors that contribute to the development of mental health issues in urban spaces. Through careful analysis, we have found that multimodal feature fusion is the best method for measuring and analysing multiple signal types in real time. However, when utilizing multimodal signals, the most important issue is how we might combine them; this is an area of burgeoning research interest. To this end, we have highlighted ways to combine multimodal features for detecting and predicting mental issues such as anxiety, mood state recognition, suicidal tendencies, and substance abuse.

Archaeological Evidence for the Dietary Practices and Lifestyle of 18th Century Lisbon, Portugal—Combined Steroidal Biomarker and Microparticle Analysis of the Carbonized Faecal Remains

The study of the urban context in the contemporary center of Portugal’s capital city uncovered traces of daily lives that were abruptly interrupted and utterly transformed by the Great Lisbon Earthquake on the morning of 1 November 1755. Charred organic residue was recovered from a cylindrical vessel excavated from the storage area of the town house at the Rossio square. The archaeological sample was studied through a multi-analytical approach based on microstructural, elemental and biomolecular characterization by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FT-IR), variable pressure scanning electron microscopy coupled to energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (VP-SEM-EDS), and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The residue was identified as human faeces collected in the ceramic vessel for disposal, and further analysis provided additional information about diet and the living conditions in the 18th century.

Ancestry of victims of 1755 Lisbon earthquake based on tooth morphology.

The present investigation comprises the characterization of skeletal remains recovered from the 2004 archaeological excavations carried out in the Cloister's Southwest Wing of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon, attributed to the 1755 earthquake. Among the remains, many teeth were found. Our goal is to use dental morphological characteristics to assess the geographic ancestry of the combined sample using the methods of biodistance and web-based application of the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System 2. The crown and root traits of the ASUDAS were scored in a sample of 1068 disarticulated teeth, 65 skulls, 138 adult and 42 sub-adult jaws. Eight characteristics of 34 specimens (7 skulls and 27 jaws) were analyzed using rASUDAS2. Results demonstrate that 73.5% of this sample can be assigned to Western Eurasian ancestry, with the remaining 26.5% divided between Sub-Saharan Africa, non-Arctic and Arctic America, and East Asia. Euclidean and Bray-Curtis distance measures were used to put this Portuguese sample in a world context. From both distance matrixes, cluster analyses were used to generate dendrograms. Based on Bray-Curtis values, Portugal is closest to Western Europe, followed by India and Eastern Europe. For the tree based on Euclidean distances, India is the first to join Portugal, followed by Eastern and Western Europe. Therefore, on both an individual and group level, the Portuguese sample is most closely tied to Western Eurasia. However, there may be other ancestries in the sample, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, due to non-European migrants in Portugal along with the African slave trade to Brazil that reached its peak in 18th century Lisbon.

Mapping perception. Innovative digital mapping approaches as urban investigation methods

This paper presents translation methods of innovative mapping approaches, from paper-based techniques from historical periods to the digital realm for 3 case studies: Bucharest, Lisbon and Rome. Such paper-based techniques are the 18th century’s city map of Rome (by Giambattista Nolli), the 1950s-60s psycho-geographical maps developed by situationists (Guy Debord) and novel visual layouts from architects and urban planners (Kevin Lynch, Saverio Muratori). A previous mapping developed by Bostenaru and Panagoupoulos (2014) of the 18th century Lisbon earthquake, based on a chronicle azulejos engraving of the event, is also considered as a base point for a more modern perception visualization of this location. Digital techniques include story maps and layered mapping. Several story maps types were investigated for walking or cycling tours. These kinds of tours are a method of investigation, more suitable in architecture than in geography, as reviewed for Rome. Photography is another such instrument and the path taken in the story map is suitable for this. The charted buildings span from 20th century heritage, to sites relevant for the effects of earthquakes, the latter for Bucharest and Lisbon. The Rapid Visual Screening method (RVS) focuses on the structural material in Bucharest, while heritage habitat approaches emphasize the role of green materials, for Lisbon and Rome. Innovations in the paper maps as well as scenario thinking (Helmuth Kahn) permit differentiating between emblematic and common buildings, which can be achieved digitally through story maps. As the example of Lisbon shows, a further step may be creating VR and 3D models or video content. In conclusion, these story map tools are useful to investigate layers of the city, for writing urban places.

Convulsed States: Earthquakes, Prophecy, and the Remaking of Early America

For nearly a decade, I taught an advanced undergraduate seminar entitled “Apocalypse.” Among other things, the course considered how Christian and Jewish ideas about the end of human history have affected and even directed the behavior of believers. Jonathan Todd Hancock’s Convulsed States would have made an excellent supplemental textbook for that course.This work is framed around the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–1812, the epicenters of which were located near the town of New Madrid, Missouri, not far from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The quakes, at least one of which was probably a 7.0 on the Richter scale, were felt from Philadelphia to what is now western Nebraska, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, a truly startling span of territory.Those who are attuned to end times speculation have long been inclined to see natural disasters as harbingers of the apocalypse. Hancock helpfully locates the earthquakes among a series of events, each of which alone would have jolted millenarians into a state of excited anticipation: the Great Comet of 1811; wars with Native Americans for control of the Northwest Territory; the outbreak of the War of 1812; and a massive fire that killed seventy-one people in Richmond, Virginia, including the state’s governor (17). Had these been insufficient to raise the anxiety of the faithful, “two charismatic religious figures laid out visions of destruction” that alarmed both white society and Native Americans.First was the 1807 prediction of Shawnee spiritual leader Tenskwatawa (also known as The Prophet) that earthquakes and other natural disasters would herald a “day of judgment” caused by the “white people [who] had taken possession of so much of the Indian country, and had lately killed so many Indians on the Wabash” (83). This book is remarkable in its thorough explication of the belief and governance systems of the indigenous people of the region, particularly the Shawnee, Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw, and how Tenskwatawa’s visions, supported by his brother Tecumseh’s aggressive militarism led to—among other things—the decline of intertribal cooperation. Second was the publication of Nimrod Hughes’s 1810 pamphlet, A Solemn Warning to All the Dwellers upon the Earth, an apocalyptic date-setting exercise based on Hughes’s interpretation of the Book of Daniel, combined with his understandings of numerology and kabbalism, in which he announced the coming apocalypse (59).Hancock aptly situates this confabulation in the context of the Second Great Awakening, which of course looms large in the history of American Methodism. “Methodist and Baptist conversions were common spiritual responses” to the earthquakes, he writes, identifying 1812 as a “watershed year for the growth of evangelicalism in the trans-Appalachian West” and crediting fears about the earthquakes for Methodism’s dramatic growth that year, with nearly 19,000 new members (61). He points out that more than 15,000 of those were in the Western Conference, where the quakes had significant impact and argues that conversions that year dramatically changed the organization of Methodism, leading to the creation of two new annual conferences. He also argues that John Wesley’s Serious Thoughts Occasioned by the Earthquake in Lisbon (1756) and other writings articulate his understanding that in the face of unfathomable catastrophe, humans should seek comfort from a loving God who receives the repentant with open arms.Hancock offers a thoughtful analysis of the dramatic end-times preaching of Lorenzo Dow, whose “sprawling theological treatise” published in 1812 identified ten signs of the coming “day of vengeance,” which included the power of the papacy, wars, famines, plagues, and, of course, earthquakes (75). My only criticism of this book is that the author does not connect Dow with Methodism. The eccentric evangelist’s tortuous relationship with the Methodists was somewhat tangential to Hancock’s argument. Still, since both Methodism and Dow are significant characters in the book, a brief acknowledgment of their connection might have been useful.

Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood

Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood

The Representation of Two Iberian Queens: Luisa of Guzmán and Mariana of Austria

This essay will examine and compare some portraits of the Spanish queen Mariana of Habsburg (1634–1696) with others of Luisa of Guzmán (1613–1666), the first Braganza queen of Portugal, in order to explore and identify the roles they played as brides and queen consorts. It also proposes to ascertain how the identity of both women was constructed to portay them as queens. Mariana’s portraits are numerous and varied but the same cannot be said of those of Luisa, as few portraits of this queen remain due to the destruction caused by the Lisbon earthquake in 1755.

New Data of the 1755 Earthquake and Tsunami in Lisbon, Portugal

In spite of the significant number of studies focused on the 1755 earthquake and tsunami, there are still many unknowns regarding this event in Lisbon, Portugal. Thus, in this research the authors compiled historical documents, including some that had never been analyzed, complemented with a field survey and tsunami numerical modeling at the historical civil parish of Santo Estevão, Lisbon. It was possible to identify 13 buildings, including three religious buildings and five palaces. Furthermore, the new data showed that contradicting the general idea, the earthquake caused significant damage to the selected territory because the number of households decreased by 52%. The number of residents decreased to about 51%, and in 1756, 1041 residents were still living in 297 temporary shelters. There were more than 44 dead and 1122 residents were unaccounted for. The fire did not hit the area, and the tsunami numerical model results were validated by the historical accounts and cartography, which indicate that the coastal area of the studied area was not significantly inundated by the tsunami. The consultation of historical documents that had never been analyzed by contemporary researchers provides a breakthrough in the knowledge of the event since it allowed a very detailed analysis of the disaster impact.

Atlantic seaquakes on 1.XI.1755 (Great Lisbon earthquake) and 31.III.1761

The article deals with data on the seismic regime before and after the Lisbon earthquake on November 1, 1755, which was accompanied by an unusual seismic activation over a large area of Western Europe, North Africa and the Atlantic, which is practically not reflected in the scientific literature. After November 1, 1755, the seismic series was observed in Western Europe, which cannot be attributed to the typical aftershock process. A distinctive feature of the post-Lisbon three phase-activ ation was the occurrence of ea rthquakes, sometimes simultaneously, in separated isolated regions of Europe, far beyond the aftershock area manifestation. In the post Lisbon seismic scenario an important and underestimated value is occupied by the earthquake of March 31, 1761, which can be considered as a “twin” of the Great Lisbon catastrophe on November 1, 1755. Both earthquakes were generated in the western Atlantic, therefore it is more correct to call them seaquakes.