Understanding of the present day seismicity and earthquake recurrence strongly relies on the knowledge of past earthquakes and their impact.

Historical earthquake research involves manifold aspects that include, among others, the retrieval and analysis of historical sources, their interpretation in terms of earthquake effects and macroseismic intensities, the assessment of earthquake parameters, the compilation of earthquake catalogues and databases.

This session aims at dealing with the wide range of topics related to historical earthquake reserach from different points of view, including methodological aspects, case-histories, lessons learned, applications, and multidisciplinary approaches.

Contributions referring to either regional or local scale, high- or low-seismicity areas are welcome. Cross-border and transnational studies are particularly encouraged, in accordance with the scope of the ESC Working Group 01-12 “Archive of historical earthquake data for the European-Mediterranean area”.