Gempa Nusantara is a database of 7,380 macroseismic effects for 1,200 damaging or significant historical earthquakes in the region of Indonesia from 1546 until 1950 shown in the figure below. This database was compiled by Martin et al. (2022, BSSA) by consulting original private and public documentary materials from the Dutch colonial period as well as newspaper reports. These observations were then used to assign macroseismic intensity using the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-1998).
S.S. Martin, P.R. Cummins and A.J. Meltzner (2022), Gempa Nusantara: A database of 7,380 macroseismic observations for 1,200 historical earthquakes in Indonesia from 1546 until 1950, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA), https://doi.org/10.1785/0120220047
All observations catalogued in Gempa Nusantara can be found in the file titled "GempaNusantara_v1.xlsx" that contains Tables S1, S2 and S3. These are denoted by colour-coded tabs in the spreadsheet and are summarized below and can be cross-referenced with each other. Any subsequent versions to this database will be also hosted here in this GitHub Repository (https://github.com/7point1/GempaNusantara/). The complete citation for this database is the Martin et al. (2022) research paper in BSSA recorded below.
This table indexes all 1,200 earthquakes scrutinized in the Gempa Nusantara Database. Each event is assigned an alphanumberic Event Identifier (column A), an Event Name (column B), the year (column C), month (column D), day (column E), local time (column F) or UTC if for an instrumented event (column G), maximum EMS-98 intensity, that is, Imax (column H) assigned by us in this study. If a numeric Imax is unavailable, we note (in the following order) whether an earthquake was damaging (D), was felt onshore (F) or at sea (S). We record any comments (column S) relating to a given event with references in Table S3.
When applicable, we record the presence of a given event in the coral record (column J) and if an Indian Ocean Dipole occured (column K). The columns (L to S) that follow indicate whether a given event was previously recorded by the Wichmann (1918, 1922), Vissier (1922), Soetadi (1962), Soetardjo et al. (1985), Newcomb and McCann (1987), Musson (2012), Harris and Major (2016) and BMKG (2019) catalogues (W, V22, S62, S85, N87, M12, HM and B19 respectively). We list Rossi-Forel (RF) intensities reported by S62 in column N, and in the case of S85, HM and B19, we list the maximum Modified Mercalli intensities from those studies in columns O, R and S respectively. These were not converted to EMS-98.
This table records all 7,380 macroseismic intensity observations in the Gempa Nusantara database. It can be cross-referenced with Table S1 using the alphanumeric Event Identifier (column A) and the Event Name (column B). This is followed by the year (column C), month (column D) and day (column E) of a given event; “0” (zero) in columns D or E indicate these data were unavailable.
The following four columns provide a Location Name (column F), and its latitude (column G), and longitude (column H) co-ordinates. A seven-character alphanumeric Location Identifier unique to each location (column I) distinguishes any given place name with other similar names but different geographic co-ordinates. This alphanumeric code (column I) contains a dual alphabet prefix that helps to identify the country it belongs to (AU = Australia; IN = India; ID = Indonesia; MY = Malaysia; PG = Papua New Guinea; PH = Philippines; SG = Singapore; TH = Thailand; TL = Timor Leste), or “SE” if the report was from a ship at sea.
A brief summary of the effects is provided under the heading “Report” (column J). Based on these effects (column J) we determined the EMS-98 intensity (column K) and its qualitative uncertainty (column L) for each location. If we felt a range of intensities were necessary, this is indicated as an EMS-Lower (column M) or an EMS-Upper (column N) offset to the EMS-98 intensity (column J). In addition to numeric EMS-98 intensities, we also note (in column K) if the earthquake was “felt” (F) or if it caused “damage” (D). Evidence of environmental effects such as landslides, ground failure, liquefaction, seismic seiches and tsunamis are indicated by “L”. The user is cautioned that this is not a complete record of all such secondary effects.
The published or archival sources that we consulted for a given location (column F) are presented under “Sources” (column O) with references in Table S3. Finally, each of the 7,380 individual intensity data points were assigned a unique alphanumeric number beginning with the prefix “IDP” (column P).
This table indexes all manuscripts and published work consulted in Tables S1 and S2. The short citation (column A) is followed by the complete citation (column ) and a reference identifier (column C). All journal names appear in italics and volume numbers are bold. In the case of manuscripts, the name of the archive preceeds the shelfmark or file and folio numbers.