catalogo de terremotos para america del sur catalog of earthquakes ...

INTRODUCTION
133
CATALOG OF EARTHQLAKIE FOR COLOMBIA
HYPOCENTER AND INTENSITY DATA
NATIONAL REPORT
Rafael Goberna, S.J.
The catalogs for hypocenters and intensities for Colombia, which are presented
for this stage of project SISRA, are not and can not be complete and
perfect. This was not- -n initial goal of the project. During the first century
of colonial times, oi ly special chroniclers dedicated their time to narrate
what occurred iln the towns seriously affected by earthquakes. llowever
from : beg-inning of the NIXt century, some foreign scientists and a few
nationals, with sufficient education and interest in science .-and history
detdicateLd themsClves to record and describe the earthquakes felt in their
own I o( ul it ies; such l ists, whicli have a purely local chaactr and are only
p;irt iai , can nevcrtheless be considered as the first seismic catalog of Colomb
ia. Thus we have the I ist of Don Santiaj.o P1Crez de Valencia for Popayin,
since before 160(0 through 1845; that of lon Jos6 Manuel 1'estrepo for Bogot5
in the l)iario, Poli1tico Y Iilitar, from 1819 to 1858, as well as that of Don
Josce Marlia Caballero from before 1800 through 1819. In the middle of the
centuiry there were several international scientists such as Ballet, Perrey
Fuclis, MiHi lne, Montessus de Bal lore and others, who col.l.ected and catalogued
sceismic data at a nat ional and international level.
Natural Iv, tb is activity created interest: in Colombia and tcward the end
of the c'nturv Mr. Franicsco Javior Vergara v Volasco had already collected a
large num.iber of the princilpiil eart hquakes of Colombia and no iborghing regions;
he pibl ished the data in the Anales de Ingenierina of 1898, tle first chronologi
cal ca:talIog of Colombia, earthquakes and short ly thereafter lie piblished
the first Carta Sisio6gica de Colombia, which includes the 01) i.centers f rom
his catalo,. Witlhout a doubt, this catalog was the source for other listings
of the epoch such as those of Rudolph and Szirtes in 1911, Espasa in vol. l/:
(word Colombia) of his Enciclopedia Un i.versal I lustrada Europea-Amer icnna and
Milne.
Nevertheless, such listings and catalogs were limited to brief descriptions
of the principal seismic effects of the earthquakes, Chronologically
ordered or in mere lists with indications of tile year and the region , but
without any information related to seismic pai. eters or event the sources.
The preparation of a real. list and a systematic catalog, with the determina -
tion and inclusion of tle principal parameters, corresponds to Padre Jesus E.
Ramnrez, S..J. , who in 1947, as a resiilt of his work published the first Mapa
Sismico y Tect6nico of Colombia, with the cooperation of P. Luis Forero Durfn,
with a chronological listing of the most important colombian earthquakes and
the values of their parameters.
This first publication was enlarged, completed and perfected during the
following years, with new editions and other listings and catalogs prepared