NEHRP Clearinghouse
- Title
- Catalog of Hawaiian Earthquakes, 1823-1959.
- File
- PB2006105320.pdf
- Author(s)
- Klein, F. W.; Wright, T. L.
- Source
- January 2000, 102 p.
- Identifying Number(s)
- USGS/PP-1623
- Abstract
- We have prepared a catalog of more than 17,000 earthquakes located in the Hawaiian Islands, principally on the Island of Hawaii, from 1823 through the third quarter of 1959, ending at the beginning date for the modern computer-based earthquake catalog. We have estimated the magnitude of all earthquakes for which seismograms or published amplitudes exist, which is more than 80 percent of the earthquakes we cataloged. We have compiled instrumental amplitudes from the Honolulu Magnetic Observatory (190359) and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) (191259) and combined these data with published felt reports for the entire time period, including newspaper accounts from 1856 to 1959 and unpublished felt reports sent to HVO from 1932 to 1941 and 1951 to 1958. We have devised means to assign location and magnitude for all events with at least a published distance from HVO, or those events that were widely felt. Locations for most of the small, and many large, earthquakes before 1950 are crude estimates because only one or a few stations with poor timing were used. We have expanded the determination of magnitude and intensity to levels lower than previously reported for this period in Hawaiimagnitudes about 5, intensities of greater than or equal to V. This catalog is designed to expand our ability to evaluate seismic hazard in Hawaii and also to greatly expand our knowledge of Hawaiian seismic rhythms as they relate to eruption cycles at Kilauea and Mauna Loa and to subcrustal earthquake patterns related to the tectonic evolution of the Hawaiian chain. This report attempts no interpretation but does provide a catalog of earthquake data heretofore unavailable in other than narrative accounts. We also evaluate the data sources and errors associated with them as a constraint on interpretations made from our catalogs listing of locations and magnitudes.
- Keywords
- ; Amplitude; Seismology; Magnitude; Hawaii; Seismicity; Earthquakes