The European PreInstrumental Earthquake CAtalogue (EPICA) the 1000-1899 was recently compiled as an input dataset of the European Seismic Hazard Model 2020. EPICA updates, maintaining the same principles and compilation strategy, the SHARE European Earthquake Catalogue (SHEEC) 1000-1899, which was the first continent-wide catalogue resulting from standardised procedures applied to a harmonised set of historical macroseismic data. EPICA exploits the updated knowledge of the European pre-instrumental seismicity gathered in the European Archive of Historical Earthquake Data (AHEAD). These data are macroseismic intensity distributions supplied by descriptive historical seismological studies and online macroseismic databases, and parameters contained in regional catalogues. Among these datasets, the most representative of the knowledge of each earthquake was chosen independently from national constraints and parameterized with standard procedures. As a result, the harmonisation of earthquake data and parameters across country borders is maximised. However, the availability and reliability of data across Europe is incomplete and uneven, and the level of update of both macroseismic studies and parametric catalogues differs considerably from one area to the other. Such heterogeneity reflects on the uniformity of the catalogue, so that the room for improving the knowledge of the European seismic history is still large. In addition, the methods for the definition of macroseismic parameters and their associated uncertainties remained unchanged in the last decade and need to be improved.This works aims at highlighting both advantages and unsolved questions related to the knowledge of past European seismicity, focusing on possible improvements.
The 28th IUGG General Assembly (IUGG2023) (Berlin 2023)