Investigating the Earthquakes of the Past Centuries: Behind the Scenes

Date: 

Thursday, October 5, 2023, 4:00pm to 5:30pm

Location: 

CMES, Rm 102, 38 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138

The CMES Disaster Studies Initiative is pleased to present

Paola Albini
Former Senior Researcher in Historical Seismology at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Department of Milano, 2001 to 2023

An earthquake in Rhodes (Greece) on May 1481
Paola Albini has been Senior Researcher in Historical Seismology at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Department of Milano (Italy), from December 2001 to April 2023, when she retired. She earned her Degree in Classical studies at the Humanities and Philosophy Faculty of the “Università degli Studi di Milano”, Milano, Italy, on 20 April 1983. Her first working experience in the field of Historical Seismology goes back to 1983-1985, on the occasion of the investigation on site-specific studies for NPPs in Italy. From 1987 to 2001, while working at the National Council of Research (CNR) of Italy, she has further specialized in the historical research on past centuries earthquakes, having been appointed as responsible of teams sponsored by the Italian Department of Civil Protection, as well as actively participating in several projects funded by the European Commission, such as RHISE, BEECD, FAUST, and later, NERIES. She has been the Principal Investigator of the project “Global Earthquake History”, Hazard Global Component of the Global Earthquake Model-GEM from October 2010 to March 2013.

 

She is co-author of the European "Archive of Historical Earthquake Data-AHEAD" (https://www.emidius.eu/AHEAD/) and of the “SHARE catalogue of European seismicity from 1000 to 2006-SHEEC (https://www.emidius.eu/SHEEC/). She actively contributes to international organizations (European Seismological Commission, American Geophysical Union, European Geophysical Union, IASPEI), both as WG responsible and convener of special sessions in the respective General Assemblies. In particular, from 2005 she is chairing the WG “Historical Seismology” of the CoSOI IASPEI commission. She has been asked as invited speaker in several international conferences.

 

Her research and interpretation of the historical records on the effects of the last millennium earthquakes in the Euro-Mediterranean area have been published in several peer-reviewed scientific journals, and she has been acting as editor of collective volumes ("Materials of the CEC project <Review of Historical Seismicity in Europe>", 1994; "The Use of Historical Data in Natural Hazards Assessment", 2001), and special journal issues on this topic (Terra Nova, 1993; Annals of Geophysics, 2004; Seismological Research Letters, Focus Section on “Historical Earthquake Data and Research”, 2020). In the field of historical seismology, she has contributed to the definition of the methodological approach i) in retrieving and interpreting the historical earthquake records, ii) in the assignment of macroseismic intensity, and iii) the assessment of the catalogue completeness from a historical perspective, incorporated in the seismic hazard calculations for the Italian territory (2004).

 

She has published (2007) the critical edition of a 16th century manuscript “Treatise on earthquake”, by the Italian Renaissance literate Stefano Breventano, dealing with earthquakes from 500 B.C to 1572 A.D. in the Mediterranean area and beyond.

 

The comprehensive investigation to unravel the sources of information to reappraise the macroseismic effects of “The Great 1667 Dalmatia earthquake” were published in a monographic study (Albini, 2015).

 

Acting as Specialty Contractor, she has investigated the historical seismicity of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, up to the first decades of the 20th century, in the framework of the SSHAC Level 3 Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis for the Thyspunt site (2009-2013). She is currently acting as Consultant for the Council of Geosciences in the Duynefontyn Nuclear Siting Project, Western Cape Province, South Africa, as the leader of the DDC4 team “Historical Seismicity Investigation”.

 

She has been actively contributing to the international project on the seismicity of the Gulf of Corinth (ENS-CNRS, France, 2010-2014), concluded with a full revaluation of five large 18th-19th centuries earthquakes.

 

As Principal Investigator of the "Global Earthquake Model" funded project "Tools for compiling the Global Earthquake History" (2010-2014), she took care of the finalization and publication of the “Global Historical Earthquake Archive and Catalogue” of large (M≥7) earthquakes from 1000 to 1903 (https://www.emidius.eu/GEH/).

 

Her latest investigations concerned: - the historical earthquakes of Eastern Adriatic, with special reference to the seismicity of Dalmatia, a historical region of today Croatia (Albini, 2015; Albini and Rovida, 2016); - the reappraisal of studies of historical earthquakes in Lebanon (Brax et al., 2019); - a critical study of Sieberg’s “Erdbebengeographie” (1932), a non-parametric, global catalogue (Albini et al., 2019); - an in-depth study of the seismicity of the Ionian Islands, Greece, in the period 1815-1865 (Albini, 2020a and 2020b); - the analysis of three global premodern descriptive catalogue to compile a comprehensive inventory of the sources on which they relied (Albini, 2023); - documents of foreign residents in Tokyo and Yokohama at the time of the 1923 Kanto earthquake (Albini and Satake, 2023).

 

Contact: Liz Flanagan