The attempt of the analisis of historical strong earthquakes parameters' reliability
by
Harutunyan Haykanush
National Survey for Seismic Protection (NSSP) of Republic Armenia, Yerevan, Department of Historical Seismicity

The Republic of Armenia and adjacent countries are an area of strong and destructive earthquakes. It is conditioned by their location in the Arabian and Eurasian continental collision zone. We have rich Data Base (by Access-2002) on the strong earthquakes occurried in the region from 6th century(c.) B.C. to 1988 /Spitak,MS=7.0/. The catastrophic earthquake that occurred in Armenia on the 7th December 1988 took lives of 26000 people. Armenia,as an ancient country that has had written language since the 5th(c.) and a high culture of civil engineering, represents a special interest from the point of view of large opportunities of studying the historical earthquakes and their influence on the historical heritage objects of constructive culture. Armenia is rich in ancient architectural and cultural monuments. Many of them dated to antique times, Middle Ages, were suffered a lot from strong earthquakes. Now we have ruins or partly retrofitted buildings of once excellent ancient monuments. A part of them now are used as religious structures or cultural monuments (museums, touring objects, exhibition halls etc.). But, nowdays they are under the danger of strong, possibly destroying, seismic influences. Nowdays, the up-to-date task is to effectively decrease the seismic risk for preservation of the cultural heritage built in the past and human life.

Investigation of historical earthquakes is an inherent and the most important part of seismology. Studing the historical seismicity of Armenia will be an invaluable addition to the earthquakes Data Base developed to improve predictions. The more complete and authentic the historical information about earthquakes is, the more accurate the definition of a seismic regime of the region, as well as the seismic hazard and risk assessment are. It's very actual for the Armenia and adjacent countries because the caused damage is considerably great.

Date received: July 30, 2004

Copyright © 2004 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caon-22.