The EMEC – European-Mediterranean Earthquake Catalogue – is a homogenized earthquake catalogue for tectonic events in the extended European-Mediterranean region. The study area extends from the Azores and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the west to the Levant, eastern Turkey, and the Caucasus in the east, and from North Africa north of the Sahara in the south to the Arctic region in the north. This geographical coverage gave the catalogue its name: EMEC – European-Mediterranean Earthquake Catalogue.
The catalogue is characterized by harmonized magnitude scale equivalent to moment magnitude (Mw), a low magnitude thresholds of Mw 3.5, and the integration of historical and instrumental earthquake data. The aim of the project is to provide a consistent and scientifically traceable earthquake catalogue for seismological and seismic hazard analyses in the European and Mediterranean region.
The current web application provides access to catalogue data, map views, and metadata:
The catalogue data are also available via an FDSN web service:
EMEC Versions
EMEC-2021
The EMEC-2021 catalogue (Lammers et al., 2023) presents the current and extended version of the “European-Mediterranean Earthquake Catalogue (EMEC) for the last millennium” (Grünthal und Wahlström, 2012). Compared to the previous version, the catalogue was extended by the years 2015 to 2021. The dataset therefore contains tetonic earthquakes for the period 1000 to 2021 with harmonized moment magnitudes Mw from a threshold of 3.5. In total, the catalogue contains 71,271 events.
Data, documentation, and citation information:
EMEC-2014
EMEC-2014 represents an advanced version of the EMEC-2006. The catalogue contains harmonized tectonic earthquake events with unified moment magnitudes Mw for the European and Mediterranean region.
This version extends the previous catalogue by the years 2007 to 2014 and therefore contains tectonic earthquakes for the period 1000 to 2014 with a uniform moment magnitude Mw from the threshold of 3.5. The dataset contains 61,140 events.
Further information and documentation:
EMEC-2006
The “European-Mediterranean Earthquake Catalogue (EMEC) for the last millennium” (Grünthal & Wahlström, 2012) was the first comprehensive version of the EMEC catalogue. Its aim was to create a consistent and harmonized earthquake catalogue with moment magnitudes Mw for the European and Mediterranean region over a long historical period.
The catalogue contains tectonic events for the period 1000 to 2006 and formed the basis for numerous seismological and seismic hazard studies in Europe.
Further information and documentation: