Since our last Newsletter there have been changes at our EMSCCo-ordination centre in Bruyères. In particular Florence Rivière has movedon to a senior post with the CTBTO in Vienna. On behalf of us all, I wouldlike to thank her for the endeavour and commitment she brought to EMSCactivities in recent years. We continued to become a more efficient andvigorous organisation, over the period, serving our members and associatesin the international seismological community.

Most will be aware that early this year we welcomed Rémy Bossu as the newSecretary General. He is already making an impact in consolidating ourlinks with ORFEUS, with eastern Mediterranean and North Africaninstitutes, and with new European project initiatives. Our existing EU EPSIproject should yield an operational, unified, monthly seismological bulletinfrom September, on the web site. Fifty institutes with 1200 stations areinvolved, and your comments will be most welcome. Rémy is also coming upwith ideas for new members, for sponsorship (but needs more help from allof us here – please send your ideas) and for improvements in our externalvisibility. Following his PhD into the intraplate seismicity of Uzbekistan, at

Grenoble, Rémy went on to research microseismicity and fractures, at KeeleUK, with application in the oil industry, before joining LDG/CEA in 1999.He brings, therefore, a breadth of scientific experience to our work.

At our Assembly in Genoa, on 4 September, we anticipate welcoming 3 newmembers: KOERI, Istanbul, NIEP, Bucharest (with a paper in thisnewsletter) and IRSN/BERSSIN, France. If existing members are unable toattend I would be most grateful if you would pass your vote to a proxy; acolleague, Rémy or myself.

Of great interest to us all is progress with the FITESC task force initiativeon which a paper appears here. We should have more debate on this andother important issues in Genoa. I look forward to seeing members andsupporters there.

Chris BrowittPresident

EDITORIAL

Centre Sismologique Euro-MéditerranéenEuropean-Mediterranean Seismological Centre

N° 18 SEPTEMBER 2002

Newsletter

No ISSN : 1607-1980

Automatically relocated seismic events world-wide and in the European-Mediterranean region since the beginning of the yea until the 31st of July. EMSC operates automatic relocation procedures every 2 hours and results are displayed on Real Time Seismicity Page.

For more details, see the following article

1 . EMSC / CSEM;bossu@emsc-csem.org,mazet@emsc-csem.org,piedfroid@emsc-csem.org;

2 . Laboratoire de Détection Géophysique,(France);guilbert@dase.bruyeres.cea.fr,menechal@dase.bruyeres.cea.fr;schindele@dase.bruyeres.cea.fr

3 . Instituto Geografico Nacional, (Spain);miguel@ign.es,emilio@ign.es;

4 . Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica, (Italy);digiovam@ingrm.it

IntroductionThe current Early Warning System (EWS) forpotentially damaging earthquake has beenrunning on an operational basis since 1994and the experience gathered is nowsignificant. This EWS focuses on theEuropean-Mediterranean region with amagnitude threshold from 5 to 5.5 (dependingon the density of expected real timecontributions at a regional scale, Figure 1).The magnitude threshold increases forincreasing distance from the European-Mediterranean region and is currently set toM6 in Continental Asia and M7 world-wide.The number of seismic alerts ranges from 70to 100 a year.

Although EWS is one of the key EMSC’sactivities, it appears that the last descriptionof this system was published in ourNewsletter n°5 in July 1994 (with an updatein Newsletter n°8 in December 1995). Thepurpose of this article is to provide an up-to-date description of our system and to presentits possible evolutions. EMSC also want totake this opportunity to thank each

contributing institutes for the time theyspend with us to constantly improve dataexchange procedures and, consequently fortheir key role in the improvement of theEWS’ performances. This role has to be fullyrecognised and we would like to encouragemore agencies to join this network ofseismic networks.These improved data exchanges haveallowed EMSC to complete its services byproviding information on the seismic activityin near real time, information available onthe Real Time Seismicity page of our web site(www.emsc-csem.org). It is based onautomatic relocations which integrate allavailable data related to the same event.

If rapid source parameters have proved to beof great interest in particular for civildefence services, the need for rapid

characterisation of damage is now becomingmore critical. EMSC being an operationalstructure with a seismologist on duty 24h aday and having been in contact with relevantcivil defence services and NGO’s for years,we believe that it is in the best position todevelop such characterisations in the future.

How this EWS works? The aim of this EWS is to provide rapidinformation on potentially damagingearthquakes in the European-Mediterraneanregion. If the current procedures have beenin use since January 1994, they have beensignificantly improved during a 2 years EU-funded project which ended in mid-1998.Basically, the different contributinginstitutes send to the EMSC in Bruyères-le-Châtel (and, to ensure redundancy, to theInstituto Geografico Nacional in Madrid)data on seismic events using Internet(Figure 2). These messages are often theresult of automatic data processing. When 2messages related to the same seismic eventindicate that the magnitude threshold hasbeen potentially exceeded, the alert istriggered (Figure 3). A message isautomatically sent to the beeper and to themobile phone of the seismologist on duty. Heconnects to EMSC facilities using a laptopPC, merges and processes all available dataand, as soon as a reliable solution isavailable, alert messages are disseminatedby fax and email. EMSC commits itself to amaximum dissemination time (time lagbetween the occurrence of the earthquakeand the messages’ dissemination) of 1 hour.This delay is respected in the vast majorityof cases, but, if available data are too limitedto get reliable source parameters, a longertime period may be required.

CSEM /EMSC Newsletter

2

EMSC Early Warning System and Real Time SeismicityR. Bossu1, 2, G. Mazet-Roux1, M. Tome3, E. Carreno3, O. Piedfroid1, J. Guilbert2, Y. Menechal2, F. Schindele2 and R. Di Giovambattista4

Figure 1: Map of the alert triggering threshold. One of our objective is to lower the thresholdto M5 in the whole European-Mediterranean region.

Figure 2: Schematic functioning of the EMSC. Contributing agencies send the results ofautomatic or manual data processing in real time. Data are automatically gathered and

displayed on the EMSC web site. Periodically an automatic relocation process is launched. Whenan earthquake is reported in 2 messages as reaching or exceeding the local magnitude threshold,the seismologist on duty receives a message on its mobile phone and beeper. Available data are

manually processed and alert messages dissemination and web site updates are performed.

Who are the contributors?The EWS is based on real time datacontributions from monitoring agencies. Thereare currently more than 30 institutescontributing to this system (see the full list inAnnex) and more than 600 stations located inthe European-Mediterranean region haveprovided real time data since the beginning ofthe year (Figure 4).

The Instituto Geografico Nacional in Madrid(IGN, Spain) and the Laboratoire de DétectionGéophysique in Bruyères le Châtel (LDG,France) provide, as key nodal member of theEMSC, contributions on operational aspects. Incase of maintenance or a technical difficulty atEMSC premises, the duty is taken over on asimple phone request by the IGN which runsthe same system. This full back up procedureensures an excellent reliability of the service.LDG, which has been hosting EMSC since 1993has, for dealing with seismic events located inFrench territory, its own operational structurewhich notably includes a seismologist and acomputer engineer on duty. The EMSC takesfull advantage of this structure.

What are the data provided tothe EWS? The data provided in the framework of the EWSare real-time (or near real time) parametric dataderived from automatic or manual processing ofseismic waveforms operated at each contributingagency. The messages EMSC receives are inASCII format which contains for each station,the type of the waves which have been recorded,their arrival times and possibly theiramplitudes. When an hypocentral location hasbeen performed at the agency, messages alsocontain the origin time, epicentral location, focaldepth and magnitude of the event. Theseparameters are mainly derived from datarecorded by short period seismometers, althoughmore broad-band data are now contributing.

A second type of data is the scalar seismicmoment provided by the 7 TREMORSBroadband stations, via the mantle magnitudeMm calculation. TREMORS (Tsunami RiskEvaluation through seismic MOment with a realTime System) is a seismic and tsunami warningsystem, based on a three component broad-bandseismic station. It detects the seismic waves,

provides an automatic location and scalarseismic moment computation, via the mantlemagnitude Mm. Mm is computed with thesurface waves amplitude spectra from 50 to300s. Such data are extremely useful to properlyestimate the magnitude of large earthquakesand they are generally available 20 to 55minutes (increasing with the epicentral distanceto the station) after the occurrence of amagnitude 6.5 or larger event.

For example, a moment magnitude Mw of 7.2(compared to Mw7.1 provided by CMT Harvard)was associated to the Taiwan earthquake of31/03/2002 in the EMSC alert message 84minutes after its occurrence.

What is the content of the alertand information messages? The EMSC issues two types of messages: alertmessages and information messages. Alertmessages are related to earthquakes whichmagnitude is above the magnitude thresholdfor the region of interest. The goal of theinformation messages is twofold. It is used toprovide, if necessary, revised source parametersfollowing a seismic alert. It is also the mean toprovide information on specific events. Theseinformations can be source parameters of asignificant event which magnitude is below themagnitude threshold or, for example, reports onearthquake damage or information relative toEMSC activities.

All messages reporting source parameters havethe same structure whether there areinformation or alert ones. They contain thesource parameters computed by EMSC (i.e.origin time, epicentral location, focal depth andmagnitude), parameters which characterise thelocation accuracy (root mean square, confidenceellipse and the number of data used), the list ofthe contributing agencies, the name of theperson who performed the location and at whattime this location was computed. For thescientific community, a message containing theseismic waves arrival times is also available.

Who can receive the messagesand how are they disseminated?Anyone who subscribes to the disseminationlist on our web site will subsequently receiveour messages. The messages are disseminatedby email. EMSC sends its messages by fax to anumber of organisations such as civil defenceservices, ECHO, Council of Europe, the faxbeing more reliable than Internet.

The EMSC provides this service for free.Nevertheless, organisations which are notalready EMSC members, are encouraged toparticipate to the operating costs through afinancial contribution.

What are the EWS performances? The first criterion (and probably one of themost difficult to meet) to assess an EWSperformances is its ability to remain in

3 September 2002

Figure 3: EMSC Real Time Seismicity page. Each line corresponds to a data messageprovided by a seismological institute and associated to a single seismic event. An hyperlink tothe raw ASCII file is available in the «Date» column. Messages that are a priori related to thesame seismic event are automatically grouped together (horizontal lines separate the groups)

on spatio-temporal criteria. An alert message (CSEM+) was disseminated 36 minutesfollowing the occurrence of this event, located West of the Greek mainland. The alert was

triggered 9 minutes after its occurrence (an exclamation mark indicates the network whichtriggered the alert and a colon indicates pre-triggering. An automatic relocation (MIX) is

computed and regularly updated for each group by mixing together all available data.A map is then drawn and can be found in the body on the MIX message.

operation 24h a day 365 days a year. Theprocedures which have been set up since 1993and which are constantly upgraded haveproved to deliver an operational system.Furthermore, its distributed architectureimplies that consequences of temporaryfailure of one or several of its data contributorsremain limited.

The growing number of contributing networkshas significantly improved the triggering lagtime (time delay between the earthquakeoccurrence and the triggering of the alert) andthe accuracy of the solutions provided by theEMSC. A quick comparison with resultsreported in our Newsletter n°8 shows thefollowing points:

• In 1995, the triggering occurred in lessthan 30 min for 65% of the alerts,whereas in 2002 for 90% of all alerts the

triggering occurs in less than 20minutes. There are only earthquakeslocated outside the European-Mediterranean region in the 10%remaining. Subsequently (and thanksto the professionalism of theseismologists on duty), thedissemination time exhibits also asignificant decrease during the sametime period: if in 1995 70% of the alertwere disseminated within 2h, where in2002, more than 85% weredisseminated within 1 hour, the longestdissemination time being 93 minutesfor an event close to the MarianaIslands.

• If the surface area of the uncertaintyellipse is taken as an indicator of thelocation accuracy, in 1995, 75% of the

alerts had an ellipse of less than 1000 km2 (i.e. average radius of 18 km),in 2002, 75% of the alerts have an ellipseof less than 350 km2 (i.e. average radiusof 11 km).

The improvement in location accuracy is alsopartly due to the implementation of specificvelocity models for border regions. Thesevelocity models have been developed in theframework of the EPSI (EarthquakeParameters and Standardised Information),an EU-funded project which aims at defininga homogeneous European - MediterraneanSeismological Bulletin. More details on thesevelocity models can be found in our web siteand in www.ingv.it/~roma/reti/epsi/index.htm.A detailed study of location accuracy in alertmode will be performed in the comingmonths.

CSEM /EMSC Newsletter

4

Figure 4: Map of 614 seismic stations located in the European-Mediterranean region that have contributed to the Early Warning System and/orthe Real time Seismicity since the beginning of 2002. World-wide, 886 individual stations have contributed in the same time period.

5 September 2002

Real Time Seismicity as anextension of the EWS? The Real Time Seismicity web page which wasfirst developed for the EWS has also been usedsince mid-2001 to provide information oncurrent seismicity by computing and displayingan automatic relocation called MIX whichmerges all available data. This MIX locationgenerally provides a better estimation ofearthquakes source parameters than eachmessages taken individually.

Each message sent to EMSC automaticallyappears on one line on the Real Time Seismicitypage (Figure 3). An hyperlink to the raw file isavailable in the «Date» column and its receptiondate and time appears at the end of themessage. Messages are ranked as a function ofthe reported origin time (time column), themost recent message being at the top of thepage (Figure 3). Messages that are a priorirelated to the same seismic event areautomatically grouped together (horizontallines separate the different groups) on spatio-temporal criteria. For events with a reportedmagnitude above the magnitude threshold, thenetworks which have contributed to the alerttriggering and the message created by EMSCwill appear (Figure 3).

Every 2 hours an automatic relocation programdeveloped for the fusion of seismologicalbulletins (this is part of the EPSI project) isapplied to new groups as well as groups whichhave received additional information in the last

2 hours. If the location process converges, thenew relocation appears in the group under thenetwork name MIX. An epicentral map isavailable in the body of the MIX message whichshows the location provided by the differentagencies and the relocation (Figure 5).

Although it is a fully automatic process, thissystem has proved, as an average, to improvethe location reliability. Tuning will be finalisedin the coming months and the periodicity of theupdate will be gradually reduced to 15 minutesand new maps will be developed to provide aclear picture of the recent seismicity.

What are the main challengesfor the future? One of our main challenges is to set themagnitude threshold at 5 in all the land of theEuropean-Mediterranean region. This iscurrently not the case in the Middle East andNorthern Africa (Figure 1). Although dataexchange with Institutes from these regionshave significantly improved in the very lastyears through, in some cases, the definition ofspecific procedures to overcome technicallimitations, we still have to work towards bettergeographical coverage and more regular andmore reliable exchange before lowering thethreshold. These is one of our priorities.

These improved data exchange procedures arepart of a number of actions which aim tofurther reduce dissemination time and tofurther improve hypocentral location accuracy.

A new web site is currently being developedthat will be more user-friendly. The EMSC website is becoming more popular and, fromemails we receive, it seems that more non-specialists access it. The present version wasmainly developed for the seismologicalcommunity and we believe that it did well butit is not easy to understand for non-scientists.Although it will remain focused on the need ofthe seismological community, the presentationwill be more graspable. Procedures are also setup to rapidly and automatically gather anddisplay all available information on significantearthquakes in the European-Mediterraneanregion (moment tensors, reports on theeffects...). In case of damaging event withinthis region, or on request, a special page willbe open and all contribution, from tectonicsetting to macroseismic data will be welcome.

Finally, our contacts with civil defenceservices have clearly demonstrated the needfor rapid characterisation of earthquakedamage. Because EMSC is an operationalstructure and because of its links with civildefence services, EMSC is very probably theright place to run this kind of service and wewill take every opportunity to promote thisproject.

List of contributing networksBAS Bulgarian Academy of Science, SofiaBulgaria; BGR Bundesanstalt furGeowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, HannoverGermany; BGS British Geological Survey,Edinburgh United Kingdom; BUC NationalInstitute of Earth Physics, Bucharest Romania;DJI Observatoire Géophysique d’Arta,Djibouti; GII Geophysical Institute of Israel;GSD Geological Survey Department Cyprus;GSSC Geophysical Survey Russian Academy ofSciences Russia, ICC Instituto Cartografico deCatalunya, Barcelona Spain; IGN InstitutoGeografico Nacional, Madrid Spain; IMOIcelandic Meteorological Observatory, ReykjavikIceland; IMP Instituto de Meteorologia, LisbonPortugal; INGV Istituto Nazionale di Geofisicae Vulcanologia Italy; INMT Institut NationalMétéorologique Tunisia; JSO JordanSeismological Observatory, Amman Jordan;KAN Kandilli Observatory, Istanbul Turkey;KNMI Koninklijk Nederlands MeteorologishInstituut The Netherlands; LDG Laboratoire deDétection et de Géophysique, Paris France; LEDGeologisches Landesamt Baden-Wuerttemberg,Freiburg Germany; LJU Urad za seizmologijo,Ljubljana Slovenia; MSO MontenegroSeismological Observatory Montenegro; NEIAUSGS/NEIC (automatic location) USA; NEIRUSGS/NEIC (manual location) USA; NEWSNorsar Early Warning System, Norway; NOANational Observatory of Athens Greece; NORNORSAR Array Norway, NRIAG NationalSeismic Network Egypt; ODC ORFEUS dataCenter, De Bilt The Netherlands; OGSOsservatorio Geofisico Sperimentale, TriesteItaly; RNS Réseau National de SurveillanceSismique, Strasbourg France; SED SwissSeismological Service, Zuerich Switzerland;THE University of Thessaloniki Greece; ZAGSeismological Survey, University of ZagrebCroatia

Figure 5: Epicentral position of the automatic relocation (yellow star) computed by EMSC andepicentral position provided by each of the contributing agencies (red dots) for the seismic event

of the 22/07/28. The relocation map is automatically created and displayed on the web site.

CSEM /EMSC Newsletter

6

The National Institute of Research andDevelopment for Earth Physics (NIEP) wasfounded in February, 1977, to coordinate theresearch activities related to earthquakes inRomania. NIEP is co-ordinated by the RomanianMinistry for Education and Research.

As main task, NIEP carries out the seismicsurvey of Romania and operates the nationalseismic network. It has a wide background inearth sciences research, with focus on seismicsource and seismotectonics, seismic hazardassessment, site effects and microzonation,lithosphere structure and dynamics, earthquakeprediction, assessment and mitigation of seismicrisk. Also, NIEP ensures Romania’s technicalcontribution to global seismological monitoringin support of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Given its demandingoperational mission, key objective of NIEP is thedevelopment of an advanced seismic datacollection and management system, includingrobust real-time data acquisition techniques,reliable communications links, rapid processingand exchange of earthquake information,compilation of bulletins and earthquakecatalogues.

A chart of the main research objectives of NIEPis presented in Figure 1.

Earthquake Monitoring NIEP operates a real-time seismic networkconsisting of 18 short-period stations, 14 ofthem located in the Eastern and SouthernCarpathians and telemetered to Bucharest, 4stations sited in the Western part of Romaniaand telemetered to a regional recording center(Figure 2). The first sub-network, installed in1980-1982, is primarily designed to surveyVrancea seismic region, located at theCarpathian arc bend and characterized byimportant intermediate depth seismic activity,with 3-4 destroying earthquakes per centurysignificantly affecting extended areas inEurope, as well as by moderate crustal seismicactivity. Since 1994, in cooperation with theGerman government, one of its stations(Muntele ) is provided with highperformance seismological instruments andbecame part of the GEOFON network. Thesecond sub-network, installed in 1995, isdedicated to the survey of the Banat region,characterized by a relatively intense crustalseismic activity. Both NIEP data centers use anautomated and networked seismologicalsystem for the on-line digital acquisition andprocessing of the seismic data, providing rapidearthquake location and magnitude determination

(Oncescu et al., 1996). The results are rapidlydistributed, via Internet, to severalseismological services around the world,including the European-MediterraneanSeismological Centre, to be used in theassociation / confirmation procedures and forcontributing to unified bulletins.

NIEP also operates a free-field strong motionnetwork consisting of 36 K2 seismic stationsand 21 SMA-1 accelerometers for recording thestrong and moderate Vrancea earthquakes(Figure 2). The K2-network, centered aroundthe Vrancea seismic zone and covering an areawith a diameter of up to 500 km, has beeninstalled in Romania recently (1995-1997), inthe framework of the Romanian-Germancooperation, within the project “StrongEarthquakes: A Challenge for Geosciences andCivil Engineering” of the University ofKarlsruhe, Germany (Bonjer et al., 2000).

NIEP has more than 25 years of experience inglobal seismological monitoring in support ofthe Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty(CTBT). It is participating to the internationalverification activities with the seismic stationMuntele , which was included in theauxiliary seismic network of the InternationalMonitoring System, and with the operation ofthe Romania’s National Data Centre (NDC). Inorder to ensure Romania’s technicalcontribution to CTBT at the operationalstandards required by the Treaty, since 1999an important upgrade has been underdevelopment both at the seismic stationMuntele and at the NDC, involving bothtechnical cooperation with the Government ofJapan and technical assistance from the CTBTOrganization. Hence, in the fall of 2001 a newseismic monitoring system was installed and isnow fully operational, by recording continuousearth motion data at Muntele site andtransmitting these data in real-time to thefacilities in Bucharest (Figure 3), in theframework of the Japan InternationalCooperation Agency project «TechnicalCooperation for Seismic Monitoring System inRomania». Also, during 2001-2002, the CTBTOrganization has supported the sitepreparation works at the seismic stationMuntele and supplied equipment forestablishing reliable data communicationslinks between the seismic station, the NDCand the International Data Centre fromVienna.

Recently, a new seismic monitoring station, theBucovina Seismic Array, has been establishedin the northern part of Romania, in a jointeffort of the Air Force Technical ApplicationsCenter, USA, and the NIEP. By July, 2002, thenew seismic monitoring system will becomefully operational by continuous recording and

Rosu

Rosu

Rosu

Rosu

Rosu

National Institute of Research and Development for Earth Physics, Bucharest:25 years of activity

Mihaela Rizescu, Mircea Radulian, Bogdan Grecu, Mihaela Popa, Constantin IonescuNIEP, PO Box MG-2, 76900 - Magurele, ROMANIABucuresti

Figure 1: NIEP major research areas and their multidisciplinary integration scheme. The lastobjective (Risk Assessment and Mitigation) is the subject for collaborative activities betweenNIEP scientists and partners from other communities – earthquake engineers, risk analysis,

and emergency management. To make this partnership effective, NIEP has in view to developan implementation interface.

7 September 2002

transmitting data in real-time to the NationalData Centers of USA, in Florida and ofRomania, in Bucharest.

Near-future strategy includes development ofRomania real-time digital seismic network.Data recorded by three additional broad bandstations (the Geofon station to be relocatedfrom Muntele to a new site in North-Dobrogea, East Romania, as well as the K2station in Apuseni Mountains and an upgradedstation in Banat, West Romania) will betransmitted continuously to the Bucharestdata centre, using satellite communicationslinks provided by the NATO Science for Peaceproject 972266 ‘Impact of VranceaEarthquakes on the Security of Bucharest andother Adjacent Urban Areas’. The main aim isthe real-time determination of hypocenters inall seismic regions of Romania and rapidestimation of damages in case of destructiveearthquakes (Figure 4).

NIEP also coordinates the field observationsfollowing major earthquakes. A portable pool ofinstruments is provided in the framework ofthe bilateral co-operation programme withGeoForschungsZentrum of Potsdam (Germany),“Task Force Earthquakes” as high-performanceseismic instrumentation for post-seismicresponse.

At present, a new earthquake database forRomania is being constructed, comprisingcomplete earthquake information and beingup-to-date, user-friendly and rapidlyaccessible. The main component of thedatabase is the catalogue of earthquakesoccurred in Romania since 984 up to present,including information related to locations andother source parameters, as well as links towaveforms of strong earthquakes (Oncescu etal., 1999). Seismicity analysis is continuouslyperformed implying updating of theearthquake catalogue, spatial-temporal-

magnitude patterns in different seismicregions of Romania, earthquake sequences.Interpretation and reconsidering of historicaldata constitutes an important issue for theseismic hazard investigation.

Seismic source is one of the main researchtopics with the long-term goal to construct aquantitative physical model for the earthquakebehavior, including all the aspects ofearthquake phenomena, from the small scale-scale (dynamic rupture) to large-scale (plateboundary tectonics) processes. Tectonic stressaccumulation, nucleation of rupture, anddynamics of the rupture propagation andcessation are among the most importantsubjects. Rupture modelling involves nonlinearprocesses and geometrical complexities onvarious scale lengths, which is a challengingtask at the boundary between seismology andcomputational sciences. The recent advance inboth observations and computer simulationshas strongly increased our performance inconstraining the source parameters over abroad magnitude range. The investigations

were focused on Vrancea intermediate-depthfocus, where the most damaging earthquakesof Romania are generated. Inversiontechniques and empirical Green’s functiondeconvolution are applied to infer sourcecharacteristics. Another important issue is thephysical interpretation of the spatial, temporaland size distributions of earthquakes, theirclustering and scaling properties. Partly theresearch is made in cooperation with theUniversity of Trieste (Italy) (bilateralcooperation programme, NATO SfP project,UNESCO-IUGS-IGCP projects) and Universityof Karlsruhe (bilateral cooperation programme,NATO projects).

Lithosphere structure shows strong lateralvariations on the Romanian territory in thecrustal and subcrustal domains as well, asrecent seismic tomography (Wenzel et al., 1998)and refraction/reflection (Hauser et al., 2000)experiments confirmed. Crustal and uppermostmantle structure are resolved using waveformdata from local, regional and teleseismicearthquakes recorded on permanent andtemporary stations. The mapping of thetopography of the crust-mantle boundary willshed light on the rheology of the lower crustand connect observed surface motions withunderlying mantle flow. A better knowledge ofthe Moho discontinuity will also improve theprediction of strong ground motions.Permanent geodetic measurements are carriedout in order to map crustal deformation, andmodel of strain and stress evolution

The complex continental collision tectonics andthe unusual concentration of the seismicactivity in the Vrancea area can be consideredlike a natural laboratory ideal for basicearthquake research. Several new models ofthe seismotectonics in the Vrancea seismicregion were proposed in the last years,attempting to integrate the seismological data(seismicity, earthquake focal mechanism,seismic wave propagation) with othergeophysical data (gravity, geodesy, heat flow,volcanism, geochemistry). An importantstrategy issue of NIEP is the integration of themultiple data sets to construct a 3-D structuremodelling for the Romanian territory.

Rosu

Figure 2: Seismic network and epicenter map of earthquakes on Romania territory. The insertin the upper-right corner shows the depth distribution of Vrancea earthquakes.

Figure 3: Bucharest data centre (left) and Muntele seismic station (right).Rosu

Local site effects are affecting to a largeextent the characteristics of the groundmotion recorded at surface. A few projectshave been set forth in cooperation withUniversity of Trieste (Italy) and Karlsruhe(Germany) to understand how sedimentarybasins influence earthquake ground motionand their focussing effects. The attention hasbeen focused on Bucharest area, whichexperienced the largest damage in the pastVrancea earthquakes. The simulation of thestrong ground motion in Bucharest usinghybrid and analytical techniques in two-dimensional models proved encouragingwhen compared against observations(Moldoveanu and Panza, 2000). Another clueproblem is to make effective use of nonlinearsoil models in research and seismic hazardproducts.

Seismic hazard is evaluated in a form,either probabilistic or scenario-based, to befurther used for earthquake engineering andemergency management. No matter theapproach is probabilistic or deterministic,major improvements are (1) the incorporationof new types of geologic, seismic andgeophysical data into seismic hazardcharacterization and (2) a betterunderstanding of how the source andstructure parameters control the strongground motions. The Vrancea source is aninteresting unique case, taking into accountthe time persistence of the earthquake activityin a well-constrained and unusually confinedfocal volume and the invariance of the focalmechanism. Therefore, in a scenario-basedanalysis, we may simply fix the source-sitegeometry, knowing this way relatively wellpropagation and site effects, which areessential in a seismic hazard determination.However, there are still a lot of openedquestions regarding the rupture dynamics atintermediate depths, the role of fluids andsegment boundaries, how nonlinear seismicresponse of soils depend on mediumproperties, amplitude and frequency.

Reliable procedures for simulating groundmotion time histories have been developed incooperation with University of Trieste (Italy)within different international projects(Copernicus, NATO, UNESCO-IUGS-IGCP –see the special volume of Pure and AppliedGeophysics, vol. 157, 2000, dedicated to thissubject-Panza et al., 2000). Through rigoroustesting of the deterministic results againstrecorded strong ground motion data, NIEPaims to develop methods that can be appliedroutinely with a high level of confidence inearthquake engineering research and practice.A coordinated strategy related to seismichazard and seismic risk mitigation has beendeveloped and implemented within a largecooperation with University of Karlsruhe(Germany) within the CRC 431 programme“Strong Earthquakes: a Challenge forGeosciences and Civil Engineering” (Wenzel,1997).

As concerns the Earthquake predictionissue, one direction is to monitor theevolution of multiple geophysical parametersin order to find possible correlations withearthquake occurrence. This is essentially anempirical approach, driven by observationdata. Specific techniques of analysis areimplemented in order to detect premonitorychanges of the Vrancea strong shocks.Different algorithms, like CN, were applied topredict the strong Vrancea earthquakes(Novikova et al., 1995). In parallel, physics-based efforts will be made for understandingthe small- and large-scale processesassociated to major earthquakes. As aconsequence of the tremendous quantitativeand qualitative increase of instrumental datain the last years, we shall apply high-resolution location techniques to resolve thespatiotemporal distribution of microearthquakesin Vrancea focal volume, and investigate thecircumstances under which we can extrapolateresults based on low-magnitude seismicity tolarge-earthquake behaviour.

Risk assessment and mitigation is one ofthe permanent and urgent problems facing theRomanian society, equally implying work ofseismologists, geologists and engineers.Significant efforts were made to predict thepeak values and spectral characteristics of thestrong motion in large urban areas, likeBucharest. At the same time, important effortswere made to determine the site effects andmicrozonation maps for the same city.Nowadays, a crucial NIEP strategy issue is toenhance the application of basic research toearthquake risk reduction, and to integrate ofour physics-based results in urban securityproblems. To this aim, NIEP will promote anddevelop the interface between understandingearthquake process and communicating thisunderstanding to engineers, emergencymanagers, government officials, and thegeneral public.

References• Bonjer, K.-P., Oncescu, M.C., Rizescu, M., Enescu,

D., Driad, L., Radulian, M., Ionescu, C., Moldoveanu,T. (2000). Source- and site-parameters of the April28, 1999 intermediate depth Vrancea earthquake:First results from the new K2 network in Romania,XXVII General Assembly of the EuropeanSeismological Commission, Lisbon, Portugal, Bookof Abstracts and Papers, SSA-2-13-O, p. 53.

• Hauser, F., Raileanu, V., Fielitz, W., Bala, A.,Prodehl, C., Polonic, G., Schulze, (2001). A.,VRANCEA99 - The Crustal structure beneath thesoutheastern Carpathians and the MoesianPlatform from a refraction seismic profile inRomania, Tectonophysics, vol. 340, 3-4, 233 -256.

• Novikova O.V., Vorobieva I.A., Enescu D., RadulianM., Kuznetzov I., Panza G.F., (1995) Prediction ofstrong earthquakes in Vrancea, Romania, using CNalgorithm, Pure and Applied Geophysics 145, 277-296.

• Oncescu, M.C., Rizescu, M., Bonjer, K.-P. (1996).SAPS - An automated and networked seismologicalacquisition and processing system, Computers &Geosciences, 22 (1), 89-97.

• Oncescu, M.C., Marza, V.I., Rizescu, M., Popa, M.(1999). The Romanian earthquake cataloguebetween 984-1997, in Vrancea Earthquakes:Tectonics, Hazard and Risk Mitigation, F. Wenzel,D. Lungu (eds) & O. Novak (co-ed.), 43-47, KluwerAcademic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands.

• Moldoveanu C.L., Panza G.F. (1999). Modelling, formicrozonation purposes, of the seismic groundmotion in Bucharest due to the Vrancea earthquakeof May 30, 1990, in Vrancea Earthquakes: Tectonics,Hazard and Risk Mitigation, F. Wenzel, D. Lungu(eds) & O. Novak (co-ed.), 85-98, Kluwer AcademicPublishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands.

• Panza, G., Radulian M., Trifu, C.-I., Preface, in“Seismic Hazard of the Circum-Pannonian Region”,eds. G. F. Panza, M. Radulian, C.-I. Trifu, Pure andApplied Geophysics 157, 1-4, 2000.

• Wenzel, F. (1997). Strong earthquakes: a challengefor geosciences and civil engineering – a newcollaborative research center in Germany. Seismol.Res. Lett. 68, p. 438-443.

• Wenzel, F., Achauer, U., Enescu, D., Kissling, E.,Russo, R., Mocanu, V., Mussachio, G., (1998). The finalstage of plate detachment; International tomographicexperiment in Romania aims to a high-resolutionsnapshot of this process. EOS, 79: 589, 592-594.

CSEM /EMSC Newsletter

8

Figure 4: Future real-time seismic network of Romania, consisting of five digital broadband stations.

9 September 2002

Short History of FITESCFITESC is the acronym for the FieldInvestigation Team of the ESC (Musson et al,2001). It is not a new idea to form aninternational team, which would collect, and laterevaluate, macroseismic data for strong anddamaging earthquakes in Europe and theMediterranean. But after recent events in the1990s (such as Southern Croatia, 1996, CentralItaly, 1997, NW Slovenia, 1998, and especiallyTurkey and Greece, 1999, see Figure 1), theabsence of such a team was keenly felt, anddiscussions of this subject were re-opened.

It was obvious that the seismological communitycurrently lacks the mechanism for creating sucha team. But if such an activity could be promoted,it would be possible to have a publichomogeneous database of earthquake effect data,a valuable resource for many studies. Havingsuch a team would also make an importantimprovement to the present level of co-operationand exchange of information in the Euro-Mediterranean region. At the General Assemblyof the ESC in Lisbon, Portugal in 2000 aresolution was endorsed, in which an interest increating such a team was expressed. APreliminary Committee was formed, with aim toexplore the possibilities of making this idea areality. The feasibility study will be presented atthe next ESC General Assembly, that will takeplace in Genoa, Italy in September 2002. It isexpected that ESC will recognise the results andendorse FITESC as a first official internationalseismological team in the history of Europe.

Questions and answers about FITESCThere are several frequently asked questionsabout FITESC, which can be answered here:

1. How often would the team be launched?

The region under investigation, that is Europeand the Mediterranean area, experiences onaverage one damaging earthquake per year. Of

course, there are years without such events, andthere are years with more such earthquakes, aswas the case in 1999. The criteria for launchingthe team on a mission cannot be completely rigid,and should be flexible, depending on eachseparate case. However, for the planningpurposes we take one event per year as a goodestimate of future activity.

2. How expensive will it be?

A study made in 2000 by eight experts withexperience in data collecting in the field broughtup the average amount of approx. 16,000 Eurosper year. Once again it should be pointed out thatthe price can be significantly lower or higher,depending on unpredictable factors, such asaccessibility, the length of the sequence or the sizeof the stricken area. Nevertheless, we are stilltalking about small, not to say negligible,amounts of money for European countries.

3. How is the money going to be managed?

EMSC, being a daughter organisation of ESC,has kindly offered FITESC to act as a banker. Toenable the fastest possible action, a certain sumwill be always accessible by the person in chargeof the team organisation; this is important toavoid delays in money transfers, as speed inlaunching of the team in the case of a majorearthquake is a paramount consideration.

4. Who is going to pay for it?

During the past two years many actions weretaken and contacts established by the membersof the Preliminary Committee, in order to obtainpermanent or temporary funding for the teamactivities. Up to now the collection of funds hasnot begun, due to legal matters that are stillbeing settled. However, we have exploited thepossibilities of having permanent sponsorship(from the insurance and re-insurancecommunities, for example, as well fromseismological institutions, governments etc), aswell as temporary sponsorship (that is connectedmainly to the local communities directly involvedwith the specific earthquake). PresentingFITESC in the form of a project (e.g. for theEuropean Community’s scientific Frameworks)does not seem appropriate, as our model foractivity is unlike those of typical short-termresearch projects. We can not guarantee that wecan produce an activity report each year, and wecan not predict when and how much money wewould need to engage after an earthquakehappens. Some options with organisations likeUNESCO, ESF etc, are still being explored.

5. How many people would be involved inthis activity?

The structure of the FITESC is pyramidal: atpresent (21 June 2002) there are 45 teammembers, from 22 countries (see Figure 2). Teammembers from each country select among themone national representative. The FITESC CoreGroup consists of three members of thePreliminary Committee, the Chairperson andVice-Chairperson of ESC Subcommission F«Engineering Seismology» (who took the firstinitiative for this activity) and five active teammembers. The decisions are taken by the threeFITESC Office members, who are also meant tobe «on-duty» as regards the launchingprocedures, anytime as needed.

When collecting information about the teammembers, the application form was sent to dozensof addresses. There were replies from somecountries that indicated, for various reasons, thatthey would not wish to be included in this activityat this time. This is a present status for Austria,Czech Republic, Finland and the Netherlands.

The Field Investigation Team of the ESC: Proposals and present progressIna Cecic, MOP-ARSO, Ljubljana, Slovenia, ina.cecic@gov.si

Roger Musson, BGS, Edinburgh, UK, rmwm@bgs.ac.uk

Figure 1: Earthquakes since 1990 in the European-Mediterranean area that causedsignificant damage and would most likely have triggered field missions. The two larger and

darker stars represent the two very heavily damaging earthquakes in this period: 1997Umbria-Marche and 1999 Izmit.

76543210

Spain

Mor

occo

Bulgar

ia

Greec

e

Slovak

ia

Yem

en

Germ

any

Alger

iaIta

ly

Mac

edon

iaU.K

.

Switzer

land

Portu

gal

Syria

Sloven

iaIsr

ael

Pales

tine

Mon

teneg

ro

France

Egypt

USA

Jord

an

Figure 2: FITESC team members (as of 21 June 2002). The countries are presented followingthe order when the applications were received.

CSEM /EMSC Newsletter

10

Some details about the team members: themajority (62%) declared that they would join theteam for sure if called upon, the rest of them willdo that perhaps, depending upon circumstances.Among the team members, there are 45%seismologists, 20% civil engineers and 35% ofthose who need some training before they canwork in the field (Figure 3). We find this scoreencouraging, as well as the fact that 94% of theteam members want to be included in the dataevaluation.

Each team would be consisting of approximately10 people, both seismologists and engineers.Every earthquake is also a precious opportunutyfor training, so 2-3 team members withoutprevious experience in the field would be takenalong and trained.Also, team would offer trainingto the personnel of the host institution, if needed,as well as training of the students from the hostcountry, who would be included as interpreters,drivers etc.

6. What will be the data collection procedures?

The team would collect macroseismic data in away that would enable evaluation using theEMS-98 intensity scale as a main tool. It isimportant to stress that this can best be achievedonly as a multidisciplinary approach, withseismologists and civil engineers workingtogether.The necessary questionnaires, forms etc.are under preparation.

Following the same pre-defined methodology foreach mission would also facilitate the creation ofa homogeneous data set.

7. What will be the team launching procedures?

After an earthquake that would satisfy certaincriteria, the team Office establishes immediatecontact with the team members, checking theavailability and eventual needs before themission is launched. The host country iscontacted as well, either through the team

national representative, or directly by theseismological officer in charge, and permission isasked for the team to come. It is understandablethat the team goes to a certain country ONLY incase that the host seismological institutionagrees with that.

On the other hand, if the personal security of theteam members is questionable, the team mightdecline the invitation to go to a certain region. Itis foreseen that the team members should startarriving 24 hours after the earthquake.

It should be pointed out once again that the aimof FITESC is to promote co-operation and notcreate conflicts; during the team’s stay in somecountry, the main authority in charge for themacroseismic data is and stays the hostseismological institution. The purpose of FITESCis purely scientific. All the communication withthe media are in the domain of the hostinstitution.

8. What about the data availability?

All the collected data will be public and presentedvia the Internet. A web page will be hosted byEMSC, and edited by the team members. Thedata could not be used for commercial purposeswithout the agreement of FITESC.

9. Where has this idea been presented?

a). Events and presentations:

• Santa Sussana, Spain, May 2001In the interest of reducing earthquake risk inthe Mediterranean region, UNESCO and theInstituto de Ciencias de la Tierra ‘JaumeAlmera’ - CSIC, Barcelona, Spain, held aworkshop on Earthquake Hazard AssessmentPractice and Velocity Models and ReferenceEvents in the Mediterranean Region. Apresentation «Towards A Macroseismic SurveyTeam for Severe Earthquakes in Europe andthe Mediterranean Basin» (Musson, Cecic andMayer-Rosa) was given there. The participantswere predominantly seismologists and civilengineers from Mediterranean countries, withwhom the possibilities of FITESC engagementin case of a disastrous event in their countrieswere discussed. In general everybody was verymuch in favour of the idea. The possibilities ofco-operation were discussed also withUNESCO representatives.

• Meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, July 2001The Preliminary Committee held a meeting inZurich in July 2001, on which some priorities ofthe future work were set.

• Kalamata, Greece, December 2001Within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean initiative concerning themobilisation of the scientific and technicalcommunity to improve risk management, aForum has been organized within theprogramme of the EUR-OPA Major HazardsAgreement, with the support of the EuropeanCommission, DG Research - International Co-operation. Its title was «Seismic Risks». ThisForum was one of a sequence of workshops

organised by the same institutions, and thefinal conclusions (made in Montpellier, France,December 2001) foresee the organisation ofseveral large European projects that wouldapproach the problem of risk reduction in amultidisciplinary way. Our proposal, i.e. thefield investigation team for macroseismic datacollection, was included as an important part offuture proposals. The presentation «FieldInvestigation Team of the ESC (FITESC) – ATask Force for Severe Earthquakes in Europeand the Mediterranean basin» by Musson,Mayer-Rosa and Cecic was given.

• Meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, May-June 2002The FITESC Core Group held a meeting inLjubljana, on which the progress report wasgiven, the existing national practices andexperiences were presented and the ideas andtasks for the next months were discussed.

• PILAR - UNESCO Planning Meeting in Paris,France, June 2002 Active projects andinitiatives in the Mediterranean region werepresented and the possibilities of co-operationand better coordination in between them werediscussed. More possibilities of co-operationwith FITESC were explored with UNESCOrepresentatives. FITESC flyer (edited by VickiKouskouna) was distributed to the participantsof the meeting.

• at the XXVIII General Assembly of theEuropean Seismological Commission in Genoa,Italy, in September 2002 there will be twopresentations about FITESC:

• in the Special Session SS-4 (EarthquakePreparedness and Civil Defence) a presentation«Towards a macroseismic survey team forsevere earthquakes in Europe and theMediterranean Basin» by R. Musson, I. Cecic,D. Mayer-Rosa and A. Tertulliani;

• in the Session SCF-4 (Methods and practice forroutine macroseismic data collection in the 21stcentury) a presentation by Ina Cecic and theFITESC Preparatory Group: «FITESC - FieldInvestigating Team for Severe Earthquakes inEurope and the Mediterranean Basin».

b) Publications:

• Musson, R., I. Cecic and D. Mayer-Rosa, 2001.Towards a Macroseismic Survey Team forSevere Earthquakes in Europe and theMediterranean Basin.CSEM/EMSC Newsletter,No. 17, pp. 8-10

• abstract in proceedings of Santa Sussanaworkshop (UNESCO, in press)

• Cecic, I., R. Musson and D. Mayer-Rosa, 2001.Macroseismic Survey Team for SevereEarthquakes in Europe and the MediterraneanBasin (FITESC). In: F. Vodopivec, ed.,Raziskave s geodezije in geofizike, 7.strokovno Slovenskega za geodezijo in geofiziko, Ljubljana, 13.december 2001, FGG - Katedra za geodezijo, pp.77-81 (in English with Slovene abstract)

• proceedings of the EUR-OPA Major HazardsAgreement programme, in press

zdruzenjasrecanjepodrocja

45%

seismologist civ. eng. training

20%35%

Figure 3: The structure of the future team,according to the professions and skills

of its members.

11 September 2002

EMICES Workshop "Real Time Data Exchangewithin Europe", 23-25 October 2002, Barcelona,Spain

Third annual MEREDIAN meeting, 21-22October 2002, Barcelona, Spain.Orfeus WG2 Workshop "Installation and

operation of broad-band seismograph stations",18-20 November, Istanbul, Turkey.For more details : http://orfeus.knmi.nl/

ANNOUNCEMENTS BY ORFEUS

The European-Mediterraean Seismological bulletin will be produced on an operational basis by the end of September. New data contributions arestrongly encouraged to ensure an optimum geographical coverage! Preliminary results are already available on our web site (EPSI page)

and your feedback and/or comments are welcome.

A Unified European-Mediterranean Seismological Bulletin available soon!

12

CSEM /EMSC Newsletter

Syn

op6

Nan

cy -

ww

w.s

ynop

6.fr

501949 1999

CONSEILDE L’EUROPE

COUNCILOF EUROPE

EMSC informationRémy Bossu Secretary General +33-1-69267814 bossu@emsc-csem.orgGilles Mazet-Roux Alert system / Data Exchange +33-1-69267813 mazet@emsc-csem.orgOlivier Piedfroid EPSI project +33-1-69267822 piedfroi@emsc-csem.orgVéronique Guerdet Administration +33-1-69267808Fax +33-1-69267000Alert messages alert@emsc-csem.org

urg@ing.esBulletins csem@emsc-csem.orgJSOP data jsop@emsc-csem.orgOther matters csem@emsc-csem.org

EMSC membersInstitute Country CorrespondantActive MembersNational Seismological Centre (NSC) Armenia Dr. Serguei BalassanianCentral Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) Austria Dr. Edmund FiegweilObservatoire Royal de Belgique (ORB) Belgium Dr. Roland VerbeirenGeological Survey Department (GSD) Cyprus Dr. George PetridesGeophysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences (GFU) Czech Republic Dr. Jan ZednikInstitute of Physics of the Earth, Brno (IPE) Czech Republic Dr. Jan SvancaraNational Survey and Cadastre, Copenhagen (KMS) Denmark Dr. Soren GregersenNational Research Inst. for Astr. and Geophysics (NRIAG) Egypt Prof. Ali TealebInstitute of Seismology (ISUH) Finland Dr. Pekka HeikkinenBureau Central de Sismologie Français (BSCF) France Dr. Michel CaraBureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM) France Dr. Pascal DominiqueLaboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées (LCPC) France Dr. Pierre-Yves BardBGR Seismologisches Zentralobs. Gräfenberg (BGR) Germany Dr. Klaus KlingeNational Observatory of Athens (NOA) Greece Dr. George StavrakakisUniversity of Thessaloniki (AUTH) Greece Dr. Manolis ScordilisInstitute of Engineering, Seismol., and Earthq. Engineering (ITSAK) Greece Dr. Christos Papaioannou Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) Iceland Dr. Ragnar Stefansson Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) Ireland Dr. Peter ReadmanGeophysical Institute of Israel (GII) Israel Dr. Yefim GittermanOsservatorio Geofisico Sperimentale (OGS) Italy Dr. Marino RussiStoria Geofisica Ambiente srl (SGA) Italy Dr. Emanuela Guidoboni Geophysics Centre at Bhannes (SGB) Lebanon Dr. Alexandre SursockCentre National de la Recherche (CNR) Morocco Prof. Aomar Iben BrahimNorwegian Seismic Array (NORSAR) Norway Dr. Jan FyenUniversity of Bergen (BER) Norway Dr. Jens HavskovInstituto de Meteorologia (IMP) Portugal Dr. Maria-Luisa SenosInstituto Superior Tecnico (IST) Portugal Dr. Joao FonsecaKing Abdulaziz City for Sciences and Technology (KACST) Saudi Arabia Dr. Tariq Al-KhalifahAgencija Republike Slovenije za Okolje (ARSO) Slovenia Dr. Ina CecicUniversidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM) Spain Dr. Belen BenitoInstitut Cartografic de Catalunya (ICC) Spain Dr. Antonio RocaSchweizerischer Erdbebendienst (SED) Switzerland Dr. Manfred BaerBritish Geological Survey (BGS) United Kingdom Dr. Chris BrowittRoyal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) The Netherlands Mr. Reynoud SleemanEarthquake Research Institute (ERD) Turkey Dr. Ferhat TasçiKey Nodal MembersLaboratoire de Détection et de Géophysique (LDG) France Dr. Bruno FeignierGeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Germany Dr. Gunter BockIstituto Nazionale di Geofisica (ING) Italy Dr. Rita Di GiovambattistaIstituto di Ricerca sul Rischio Sismico (IRRS) Italy Dr. Massimiliano StucchiCenter of Geophysical Computer Data Studies (CGDS) Russia Dr. Alexei Gvishiani Instituto Geografico Nacional (IGN) Spain Dr. Francisco Vidalcorporate Members Mediterranean Re Ireland Mr. Tim HennessyMembers by Right European Seismological Commission (ESC) - Ms. Alice WalkerObservatories and Research Facilities for European Seismology (ORFEUS) - Dr. Bernard DostInternational Seismological Centre (ISC) - Dr. Ray Willemann

Applications for EMSC membershipThe following Institutes have applied for an EMSC membership

Institute Country CorrespondantBureau of Seismic Risk Evaluation for the Safety of Nuclear Facilities (BERSSIN) France Dr. Catherine Berge-ThierryNational Institute for Earth Physics (NIEP) Romania Dr. GheorgheKandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute (KOERI) Turkey Prof. A. Mete Isikara

EMSC,

coordinator

of an E.C. funded project

EMSC,

specialized European Centre

for the Open Partial Agreement

Marmureanu