The Traces and Chronology of the Strong Historical Earthquakes on Cape Zyuk, East Crimea

Abstract

The results of studying the geological and archaeological traces of the strong earthquakes on Cape Zyuk where the ancient settlement existed from the turn of the 6th to the 5th centuries B.C. to the first-third–middle of the 6th century A.D. are presented. The detailed knowledge gained on this monument allowed us to compile the timeline of the strong earthquakes for the past 2500 years. The detection of the seismotectonic deformation of the Late Holocene sediments indicates that the rupture of the source of a strong earthquake at Cape Zyuk extended to the surface. The dating of this event is constrained by the upper age of the second half of the 4th century B.C. to the beginning of the third century B.C. The previous event is dated to before the turn of the 6th–5th centuries B.C. Besides these events, there were presumably another four earthquakes in 63 B.C., before the second half of the 4th century B.C., in the first third to the mid-6th century A.D., and in the 18th century. Presumably Cape Zyuk was struck by four or five strong earthquakes during the past 2500 years. The lack of information about the earthquakes between the 6th and 18th centuries, i.e., during more than a 1000-year period, can probably be related to both the long period of quiescence between seismic activations and to the incompleteness of the collected data.