It took a while, but now it’s finally here: Understanding Past Earthquakes, an open access book on the science of identifying large earthquakes. It deals with fundamental questions on large past events: Where did earthquakes occur? How large were they? Which tectonic faults caused them? How strong were the ground motions and where?
Six chapters cover the following subjects:

• Ou et al. – Earthquake Source Parameters Determination Using Analog Seismic Records
• Hough – Macroseismology
• Sintubin – Archaeoseismology: Identifying Earthquake Effects in Ancient Sites
• Zielke & Klinger – Past Earthquakes in Continental Settings—A Geomorphologic Perspective
• Philibosian – Paleoseismology and Paleogeodesy Using Coral Microatolls
• Moernaut et al. – Lacustrine Records of Past Seismic Shaking

Basically, it’s about paleoseismology, but excluding paleoseismology, because we already have McCalpin’s book. Neighbouring topics such as coseismic landslides, the ESI2007 scale, soft-sediment deformation, tsunamis, and marine turbidites have already been covered by other books or recent reviews.

The book was edited by Austin Elliott and Christoph Grützner. It’s free as a PDF or e-book, but also available as a hardcover for your bookshelf. Check it out here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-73580-6.

References:

• Elliott, A., Gruetzner, C. (2025). Understanding Past Earthquakes. (Eds.) Springer, Cham. ISBN: 978-3-031-73582-0
• Elliott, A., & Gruetzner, C. (2025). Introduction to Understanding Past Earthquakes. In: Elliott, A., Gruetzner, C. (eds) Understanding Past Earthquakes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73580-6_1
• Ou, Q., Kulikova, G., Krüger, F. (2025). Earthquake Source Parameters Determination Using Analog Seismic Records. In: Elliott, A., Gruetzner, C. (eds) Understanding Past Earthquakes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73580-6_2
• Hough, S. E. (2025). Macroseismology. In: Elliott, A., Gruetzner, C. (eds) Understanding Past Earthquakes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73580-6_3
• Sintubin, M. (2025). Archaeoseismology: Identifying Earthquake Effects in Ancient Sites. In: Elliott, A., Gruetzner, C. (eds) Understanding Past Earthquakes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73580-6_4
• Zielke, O., Klinger, Y. (2025). Past Earthquakes in Continental Settings—A Geomorphologic Perspective. In: Elliott, A., Gruetzner, C. (eds) Understanding Past Earthquakes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73580-6_5
• Philibosian, B. (2025). Paleoseismology and Paleogeodesy Using Coral Microatolls. In: Elliott, A., Gruetzner, C. (eds) Understanding Past Earthquakes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73580-6_6
• Moernaut, J., Howarth, J., Kremer, K., Wils, K. (2025). Lacustrine Records of Past Seismic Shaking. In: Elliott, A., Gruetzner, C. (eds) Understanding Past Earthquakes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73580-6_7

Tweet