journal article·2024-05-01Open access

Reassessing the Location, Magnitude, and Macroseismic Intensity Map of the 8 April 1893 Svilajnac (Serbia) Earthquake

Miodrag I. Manić, Borko Đ. Bulajić

Applied Sciences· Volume 14· Issue 9

Abstract

A devastating earthquake took place on 8 April 1893, close to the town of Svilajnac, central Serbia. Over the past decade, significant historical data on the effects of this earthquake has been collected from a variety of sources, including books, scientific publications, reports, newspapers, and coeval chronicles. Additionally, this earthquake was recorded 750 km from the epicenter at the seismological station Rocca di Papa in Rome, Italy. Based on critical review and analysis of the historical data, we demonstrate that the epicentral area of this earthquake was 531 km2, and the macroseismic effects were recorded at epicentral distances up to 600 km towards the west (Vienna, Austria) towards the north, up to 500 km (Košice–Michalovce, Slovakia), towards the east up to 460 km (Brašov–Borsec, Romania); and towards the south up to about 300 km (Radoviš, North Macedonia). Finally, we show that the key parameters of the 1893 Svilajnac earthquake are as follows: (1) epicentral intensity, I0 = IX EMS-98, (2) the estimations of the moment magnitude and focal depth based on the observed intensities, MW = 6.8 and h = 13 km, respectively, and (3) the epicenter coordinates, 44.160° N and 21.354° E.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: earthquake and tectonic studies · Earthquake Detection and Analysis · Geochemistry and Geologic Mapping

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Independent Researcher, Crvena Skopska Opština 4/1-1, 1000 Skopje, North Macedonia

Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovića 6, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia

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