Earthquake Catalogue for Germany and Adjacent Areas

The first computerized earthquake catalogue of the Federal Republic of Germany and adjacent areas was issued by BGR in 1978. Since then the catalogue has been continuously improved and supplemented and now contains 12.667 earthquakes for the period from AD 800 to 2008.

An earthquake catalogue is never completed, but must be continuously updated and new results and findings included; all these changes have to be documented. This work is done by BGR for the German earthquake catalogue.

Earthquake catalogue for Germany and adjacent areas for the years 800 to 2008 Source: BGR

The Earthquake Catalogue for Germany for the years 800 to 2008 has been published by LEYDECKER (2011); the files can be downloaded (see below).

A b s t r a c t : The presented earthquake catalogue for Germany and adjacent areas for the years 800 to 2008 contains approx. 12700 events with ML ≥ 2.0 in the area bounded by 47°N - 56°N and 5°E - 16°E. The earthquake catalogue in a digital format was published for the first time in the year 1986. It contained approx. 1890 earthquakes, predominant for the territory at that time of the Federal Republic of Germany and covering the time period from 1000 to 1981. Since then the spatial area and the time period of the catalogue have been extended, annually updated, and corrected and supplemented based on the latest historical earthquake research findings. The earthquake catalogue for the territory of the former GDR was incorporated in 1991. In recent years, alignment has been carried out with the catalogues of the adjacent countries, in particular with the catalogues of Switzerland and Austria. Co-operation with colleagues enabled the data of the 20th century Vogtland swarm quakes to be harmonized, corrected and reduced to the detectable events. A re-evaluation of the seismic activity of the Upper Rhine Graben was accomplished using the data from the long term monitoring of local seismic networks. Furthermore, the moment magnitude has now also been added to the list of earthquake parameters.
Because of the large number of events, the only earthquakes printed here have at least an intensity of IV or a magnitude of ML 3.0. The detailed references to all quakes and the used literature are contained in the appendices. Lists of rejected earthquakes and of earthquakes with fundamentally and/or significantly changed parameters are also provided. The modifications always are explained with comments stating the reason and the date of the change. The provided compilation of empirical relationships helps users to apply the catalogue with respect to rupture parameters, the local and regional effects of individual quakes, and the seismic hazard assessment. The effects of big rockbursts are treated separately.
The enclosed CD contains the complete earthquake catalogue with the format description, the list of references with all literature citations, as well as the cancellation and change lists. Computer programs may facilitate the utilisation of the earthquake catalogue with respect to certain location and size dependent criteria for the selection of earthquakes. An additional computer program and the data file with the vertexes of the seismogeographical regions allow the placement of an epicenter to its region. All these data and computer programs are available on request.

The actual earthquake data catalogue and additional files are available below for download.

The two epicenter maps clearly display the earthquake activity in Germany. One of the maps shows all earthquakes of the catalogue, the second map only those with an epicentral intensity larger than VI - VII, i.e., those that caused damage. Regions with high seismicity can be easily recognized on the second map: the northern margin of the Alps, Lake Constance area, Swabian Alb, Upper Rhine Graben, Central Rhine area and Lower Rhine Embayment, Vogtland, the region around Gera, and the Leipzig Embayment. Nontectonic destructive earthquakes were caused by rock bursts resulting from mining operations.
Germany has been divided into relatively small areas on the basis of seismicity and geology, allowing assignment of an earthquake to a named region (Seismogeographical regionalisation of Germany).
Information about actual earthquakes can be obtained at Central Seismological Observatory or SDAC.

Source:
LEYDECKER, G. (2011): Erdbebenkatalog für Deutschland mit Randgebieten für die Jahre 800 bis 2008. (Earthquake catalogue for Germany and adjacent areas for the years 800 to 2008). Geologisches Jahrbuch, E 59, 1-198; 12 Abb., 5 Tab., 9 Anh., 1 CD; BGR Hannover;
Vertrieb/Distribution: E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart.

ERRATUM
On the CD enclosed to the book in the folder „Regions“ the FORTRAN-program „ATTACH-EPIC-to-REGION.for“ is stored which has to be corrected, as well as the corresponding “Exe-file“. The files „REG-CENTRAL-EUROPE-2011-y.txt“ and „Region-explanation-y.pdf“ are a little modified. The four corrected new files you can download here:
ATTACH-2-EPIC-to-REG-2013.for (txt, 16 KB)
ATTACH-2-EPIC-to-REG-2013.exe (octet-stream, 544 KB)
REG-CENTRAL-EUROPE-2013-04-y.txt (txt, 29 KB)
Region-explanation-2014-3-y.pdf (PDF, 17 KB)

Corrected earthquake catalogue
The actual German earthquake data catalogue, the format description, the reference list published on the CD together with the complimentary reference list you can download with GER-Catalogue-2016-09-y.zip (zip, 281 KB).