Tsunamis

As 75-80% of tsunamis are related to a submarine earthquake, let’s have a look at the latter first.

Earthquakes

Earthquakes and volcano eruptions usually occur along faults separating tectonic plates moving with respect to each other.

Earthquakes between 1904 and 2015 (source: ICS 2019).
Main faults and tectonic plates in the Near East (source: New Scientist, 2011).
The African plate is moving northwards under the Anatolian plate; The Arabian plate is moving northwards inducing a rotation of the Anatolian and Aegean plates; The boundary between the African and the Arabian plates is on the Dead Sea Fault, Jordan valley and Beqaa valley.
The North Anatolian Fault is passing near Istanbul and a volcanic arc follows the isles of Aegina, Milos, Santorini, Nysiros/Gyali/Kos; In this process, the Aegean plate is sucked downwards, inducing subsidence of islands.
Earthquakes with magnitude > VII (source: NOAA, 2019).
Most of them are located along the faults mentioned in the previous figure.

Measuring the ‘size’ of an earthquake is not a simple matter. One can describe the damage that occurred at a certain location and thus define a local ‘earthquake intensity‘ (Mercalli, EMS-98 and others, usually ranging from 1 to 12). However, this may seem subjective and is location-dependent. Therefore, more scientific ‘earthquake magnitudes‘ were defined (Richter and others) that are based on seismographic measurements and reflect the size of the earthquake at its epicentre.

Tsunamis

The size of a tsunami is also hard to define. It can be described as the horizontal inundation distance of inland flooding, or as the vertical run-up on a sloping shoreline, and/or as the maximum rise of the water level above the normal tidal level at the time of occurence of the tsunami (called “tsunami height” H), and/or as the water depth (and flow velocity) of the flow flooding the shoreline. Soloviev (1974) proposed a ‘Soloviev-Imamura tsunami intensity scale‘ ‘I’ based on the tsunami height, averaged along the nearest coastline (Hav): for Hav = 2.8 m, I = 2, and for Hav = 5.5 m, I = 3.

More recently, a new Integrated Tsunami Intensity Scale (ITIS-2012) with a scale ranging from 1 to 12, was proposed by Lekkas et alii (2013)[00].

Definition of tsunami parameters

Attention has been focused on this natural phenomenon in recent times, and has been well known by the Japanese over the past millennia, reason why we use the Japanese word ‘tsunami’ to designate a group of a few waves, that travels on the sea surface and reaches the coast inducing more or less damage and casualties. A tsunami is not a storm consisting of many high waves. A tsunami might be compared to a tidal bore, but its generation is not due to the tide (triggered by moon and sun).

A tsunami is a large-scale, short-duration disturbance of the free water surface usually generated by crustal movements of the earth. Such movements can be generated by earthquakes and by volcanic eruptions inducing submarine landslides. This was intuitively understood by Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian war, 3, 89). Other generating factors can be coastal landslides from the shore into the sea (ca. 10% of tsunamis), submarine volcano eruptions or explosions (ca. 5% of tsunamis), high-density pyroclastic flows, glacier calvings, and even meteorite impacts[0]. Note that an earthquake does not generate a large tsunami by itself because the vibrations of the earth are of a frequency (say 0.1 Hz) unable to move a large body of water like a sea, but it can generate an onshore or a submarine vertical landslide, which may generate a tsunami if it is large enough and sudden enough. For this reason, the formal relationship between the intensity of a tsunami and the intensity of its generating earthquake is rather loose, i.e. a strong earthquake may generate only a small tsunami and vice-versa.

You can make your own small-scale modelling just by throwing a stone in still water!

From its area of generation, a tsunami propagates like a sea wave on the sea surface. However, its speed is much larger (say 500 to 1000 km/h, e.g., if generated near Crete, it may reach any eastern-Med coast in less than one or two hours). On deep water, the tsunami may have a fairly small height (say less than one meter), but when it reaches shallow waters (say less than 1000 m), the wave will gradually steepen and its height will increase. By a very fortunate coincidence, a Belgian yacht, the Mercator, was anchored on 14 m water depth at 1.6 km offshore Phuket during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and they registered the following water-level variation:

Signal recorded by the Mercator yacht during 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
(adapted from Chandler, et al, 2016).

If you follow the graph from left to right, you see a 2.8 m deep trough coming first, followed by a 3.7 m crest, yielding a 6.5 m wave height. The total duration of the wave passing by was around 1200 s, or 20 minutes, and the rise from -2.8 to +3.7 m took only around 6 minutes and must have been quite impressive on board the yacht. This graph also shows that the shoaling tsunami wave becomes ‘non-linear’, featuring a narrower crest and a wider trough, deviating from the ‘linear’ sinusoidal shape.

Like any wave, a tsunami will break when it reaches relatively shallow waters (local wave height/local water depth = 0.5 to 1). Hydraulic research on scale models has shown that the tsunami wave front splits into a few short waves that are amplified by shoaling just before breaking (factors of 3 to 5 times the offshore wave height have been recorded). You might imagine that due to friction on the seabed, the bottom of the wave will travel slower than the top of the wave, thus leading to a ‘spilling‘ (or ‘plunging’) of the top of the wave over the bottom side of the wave. The problem with a tsunami is that its wave length on deep water (order of 100 km) is much larger than that of a normal wave (order of 100 m), thus containing much more energy. Therefore, the volume of water involved in this spilling process is huge, resulting in a high-speed horizontal flow of water on the beach and adjacent coastal area (say 5-10 m/s, and more, video). This incoming wave might be called a ‘tsunami bore’, similarly to a tidal bore (See the most impressive Qiantang tidal bore in Hangzhou Bay (China) featuring a 5-6 meters sudden rise of water level). The height of this water flow is usually limited to a few meters (6 m at Tohoku, 2011), but it can reach a considerable run-up height on an inland hill-slope (up to 40 m at Tohoku, 2011) or propagate over several kilometers inland on horizontal terrain (10 km at Tohoku, 2011).
Obviously, this huge volume of water must flow back to the sea, inducing further damage, depending on the inland slope.
Moreover, the flooding may consist of several waves within say one hour (further reading on Wikipedia).

In the most dramatic historical events, the effects of an earthquake were combined with those of a tsunami, e.g., a coastal area was subjected to subsidence (or uplift) and to flooding by a tsunami generated elsewhere by the same earthquake. This probably happened on July 21, 365 when Crete literally tilted (9 m uplift on the south western side and 4 m subsidence on the north eastern side) with effects felt all over the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The most (in)famous ancient tsunamis can be listed shortly as follows (a more complete list is presented further below):

  • ca. 1600 BC during the Thera (Santorini) volcanic eruption, inducing a tsunami that partly destroyed the Knossos Minoan civilisation,
  • 1365 BC at Ugarit, mentioned in an Amarna letter,
  • 525 BC at Tyre and Sidon, mentioned by Strabo,
  • 479 BC at Potidaia, described by Herodotus,
  • 426 BC at Orobiae (north Euboea), mentioned by Thucydides,
  • 373 BC at Helike (northern Peloponnesus), when the city disappeared,
  • 227 BC at Rhodes, when the Colossus collapsed,
  • 92 BC large tsunami on the Levantine coast,
  • 79 AD initiated by the Vesuvius eruption near Pompei,
  • 365 AD initiated on western Crete but felt from the Levant to Sicily,
  • 458 AD at Antioch,
  • 551 AD on the Levantine coast, one of the largest ancient earthquakes,
  • 747 AD, large earthquake in Galilea and the Beqaa valley,
  • 854 AD large earthquake in lake Tiberias
  • 881 AD initiated on the Levantine coast but felt from the Levant to Andalucia,
  • 991, 1002 or 1003, 1089, 1157, 1202,
  • 1303 initiated near Rhodes but felt from Akko to Tunis and Istanbul,
  • 1408 around Lattakia,
  • and others after 1500.

At least 400 earthquakes and/or tsunamis occurred in the Mediterranean area between 500 BC and 1500 AD, i.e., 20 tsunamis/century.

Sedimentological impact of tsunamis

“… to simply identify a palaeotsunami in the geological record is by no means simple. Over the past decade or more, geologists have carefully constructed a proxy toolkit for identifying palaeotsunamis.”[1] This sentence implies that hydrodynamics of tsunamis is a complex field and only few mathematical formulations have been published[2]. The study of movement of materials under the effect of a tsunami is of an even higher level of complexity and must therefore be roughly schematised.

Without going into details, it should be kept in mind that a tsunami consists of a small number of long waves out of which the second is often the highest. Quite differently, a storm, defined by a “significant wave height” Hs, consists of thousands of short waves out of which only one maximum wave is moving more materials than any other wave (it is usually accepted that Hmax = 2 Hs).

We may distinguish the impact of tsunamis on rock boulders resting near the shore and on various types of offshore marine deposits[3].

Boulders
Tsunami impact on boulders on a rocky coast (adapted from Cox, 2018).

Several formulations have been proposed to compute the storm-wave height and tsunami height required to move a given size of boulder, but results show discrepencies[4] which are mainly due to erroneous schematisations of the tsunami hydrodynamics[5].
On rocky coasts, we may distinguish small boulders and large boulders.
Small boulders may be moved by large storm-waves, if such waves can reach the location where boulders are resting on the coastline. The largest significant wave heights in the Mediterrnean are aound Hs = 10 m for a one-hundred-year storm on the coasts of northern Algeria-Tunisia, Cyrenaica and the Levant (see section on design waves). The, for coastal engineers, famous Hudson equation shows that the largest boulders that such a storm might move do not exceed 50 tons. This involves a flow velocity in the order of 10-12 m/s. Hence, in these regions, all boulders smaller than 50 ton might be moved by large storms as well as by tsunamis, but larger boulders can be moved only by tsunamis.
The travelling distance of boulders obviously depends on the tsunami size and on the boulder size, and large boulders have been seen moving over tens of meters on a horizontal surface, or several meters in a vertical movement, e.g., from the waterline to the top of a small cliff[6].
As the hydrodynamics involved are complex, further study of the movement of boulders due to storm waves and to tsunamis must be performed on small-scale models[7], in addition to computations with mathematical models[8].

Marine deposits
Sedimentological impact of a tsunami on a sandy coast (adapted from Wikipedia).

A tsunami wave starts to disturb the seabed as from a long distance of the shore, where the water depth is many tens of meters. At such a water depth, the seabed often consists of very fine sediment like silt and marine mud. While disturbing seabed materials, the tsunami bore becomes turbid, bringing large quantities of fine offshore sediment to the shore. A similar picture occurs when the tsunami is nearing a sandy coast where large volumes of fine dune-sand may be picked up by the bore and transported further inland. If the hinterland is a flat plain, this sediment is thus deposited inland in a layer with decreasing thickness of a few decimetres near the coast to a few millimetres at several kilometres inland. Moreover, the grain size in a vertical section of the deposit is fining upwards[9]. Subsequently to the massive inflow of water, a strong backwash is unavoidable, taking deposited sediment and possibly some terrestrial material back to the sea. It is obviously difficult to predict the result …
Similar deposits may also occur in quiescent coastal lagoons where marine sediment, marine microfauna (foraminifera tests, ostracods, diatoms) and marine macrofauna (bivalve shells) brought by a tsunami may be deposited on top of lagoonal sediment which usually contains brackish-water fauna. However, such deposits may also be due to a super-storm that might have broken through the coastal barrier islands locally, generating a wash-over fan[10].
It might be reminded here that a super-storm on a sandy coast, with say a Hs = 10 m wave height, will show wave breaking at ca. 20 m water depth. That is well offshore the coast, but such a storm will nevertheless induce severe erosion of the seabed and coastline. However, damage induced by a tsunami would be much larger.
It is even more difficult to distinguish between autochthonous and allochthonous deposits in the case of estuaries where river sediment due to river floods is mixed up with marine sediment due to storms, and possibly to tsunamis[11].

In case of uncertainty about the origin of some ancient coastal sediment layers, we like to speak of a “high-energy event”.

A high-energy deposit in the Byzantine harbour of Yenikapı, Istanbul (5th to 6th c. AD).
(photo: D. Perincek, 2010)
References

[00] LEKKAS, E., ANDREADAKIS, E., KOSTAKI, I., KAPOURANI, E., 2012, “A Proposal for a New Integrated Tsunami Intensity Scale (ITIS-2012)”, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 103, No. 2B, (p 1493–1502).

[0] DE LANGE, G., et al., 2011, “Executive Summary”, in “Marine geo-hazards in the Mediterranean”, CIESM Workshop, Nicosia, 2 – 5 February 2011, (p 7–20).

[1] GOFF, J., et al., 2012, “Progress in palaeotsunami research”, Sedimentary Geology, 243–244, (p 70–88).

[2] LEVIN, B., & NOSOV, M., 2014, “Physics of Tsunamis”, Springer, (399 p).
Physical modelling:
CHANDLER, I., et al., 2016, “Understanding wave generation in pneumatic tsunami simulators”, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Application of Physical Modelling in Coastal and Port Engineering and Science (Coastlab16), Ottawa, Canada, May 10-13, 2016
MATSUYAMA, M., et al., 2007, “A study of tsunami wave fission in an undistorted experiment”, Pure Appl. Geophys. 164(2–3), (p 617-631).
YOSHII, T., TANAKA, S., MATSUYAMA, M., 2017, “Tsunami deposits in a super-large wave flume”, Marine Geology 391, (p 98-107).
YOSHII, T., TANAKA, S., MATSUYAMA, M., 2018, “Tsunami inundation, sediment transport, and deposition process of tsunami deposits on coastal lowland inferred from the Tsunami Sand Transport Laboratory Experiment (TSTLE)”, Marine Geology 400, (p 107-118).
Numerical modelling:
WEI, GE, et al., 1995, “A fully nonlinear Boussinesq model for surface
waves. Part 1. Highly nonlinear unsteady waves”, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, July 1995, vol. 294, (p 71-92).
FENGYAN SHI, et al., 2012, “A high-order adaptive time-stepping TVD solver for Boussinesq modeling of breaking waves and coastal inundation”, Elseviers, Ocean Modelling, Vol. 43-44, (p 36-51). FUNWAVE-TVD.
GRILLI, S., et al., 2012, “Numerical modeling of coastal tsunami impact dissipation and impact”, Proceedings of the Coastal Engineering Conference, 33.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami_deposit

[4] PISCITELLI, A., et al., 2016, “Numerical approach to the study of coastal boulders: The case of Martigues, Marseille, France”, Quaternary International, Volume 439, Part A, (p 52-64).

[5] COX, R., 2020, “Systematic Review Shows That Work Done by Storm Waves Can Be Misinterpreted as Tsunami-Related Because Commonly Used Hydrodynamic Equations Are Flawed”, Front. Mar. Sci., 7:4, (18 p).

[6] MAOUCHE, S., et al., 2009, “Large boulder accumulation on the Algerian coast evidence tsunami events in the western Mediterranean”, Marine Geology, 262 (p 96–104).

[7] LIU, H, & SATO, S., 2014, “An experimental study on the tsunami boulder movement”, Coastal Engineering Proceedings, (11 p).

[8] BUCKLEY, M., et al., 2011, “Inverse modeling of velocities and inferred cause of overwash that emplaced inland fields of boulders at Anegada, British Virgin Islands”, Nat Hazards, Springer, (17 p).

[9] PILARCZYK, J., et al., 2012, “Sedimentary and foraminiferal evidence of the 2011 Tōhoku-oki tsunami on the Sendai coastal plain, Japan”, Sedimentary Geology, 282 (p 78–89).

[10] SABATIER, P., et al., 2012, “7000 years of paleostorm activity in the NW Mediterranean Sea in response to Holocene climate events”, Quaternary Research, 77, (p 1–11).

[11] DELILE, H., & SALOMON, F, 2020, “Palaeotsunami deposits at the Tiber River mouth (Ostia Antica, Italy): Do they really exist?”, Earth-Science Reviews, Volume 208, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103268.


List of historical earthquakes and tsunamis

A list of ‘all’ known historical earthquakes and tsunamis in the Mediterranean that occurred before 1500 AD area can be found hereafter.

Notes about this list:

  • A total number of around 465 earthquakes was reported from 2000 BC to 1500 AD. Around 135 of these earthquakes generated a tsunami that was reported (29%).
  • Earthquakes are fairly well distributed in time and in magnitude, although some concentrations in time are found in 0-150 AD, 300-600 AD, 850-1000 AD.
  • The largest earthquake was reported on 21/7/365 AD, with an intensity evaluated to X-XI.
  • As each coastal earthquake does not necessarily induce a tsunami, we reported a “possible” tsunami when an earthquake occurred, but no tsunami was reported by ancient writers. Some places are located far enough inland to suppose they did not induce a tsunami (noted “-“).
  • The intensity of earthquakes is given acc. to the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS) with the following intensity scale (for VII and more):

VII

Damaging. Most people are frightened and run outdoors. Furniture is shifted and many objects fall from shelves. Many buildings suffer slight to moderate damage. Cracks in walls; partial collapse of chimneys.

VIII

Heavily damaging. Furniture may be overturned. Many to most buildings suffer damage: chimneys fall; large cracks appear in walls and a few buildings may partially collapse. Can be noticed by people driving cars.

IX

Destructive. Monuments and columns fall or are twisted. Many ordinary buildings partially collapse and a few collapse completely. Windows shatter.

X

Very destructive. Many buildings collapse. Cracks and landslides can be seen.

XI

Devastating. Most buildings collapse.

XII

Completely devastating. Almost all structures are destroyed. The ground changes.

The following sources were used to compile this list:

  • ALTINOK, Y., 2011, “Revision of the tsunami catalogue affecting Turkish coasts and surrounding regions”, Nat. Hazards and Earth Systems Sciences, 11, (p 273–291).
  • GEOLITHIC: http://geolithik.com/map/ (not operational anymore).
  • GUIDOBONI, E., COMASTRI, A., TRAINA, G., 1994, “Catalogue of ancient earthquakes in the Mediterranean area up to the 10th century”, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica, Bologna, (504 p), with 300 earthquakes before 995 AD described in detail.
  • NOAA: https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu_db.shtml
  • PAPAZACHOS, B.C. & PAPAZACHOU C., 1997, “The earthquakes of Greece”, Ziti Editions, Thessaloniki, Greece, (304 p), with 170 earthquakes before 1510 AD.
  • SALAMON, A., et al., 2007, “Tsunami Hazard Evaluation of the Eastern Mediterranean: Historical Analysis and Selected Modeling”, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 97, No. 3, (p 705–724).
  • SBEINATI, M., DARAWCHEH, R., MOUTY M., 2005, “The historical earthquakes of Syria: an analysis of large and moderate earthquakes from 1365 B.C. to 1900 A.D.”, Annals of Geophysics, Vol. 48, N. 3, June 2005, (89 p), with 181 Syrian earthquakes and tsunamis.
  • SOLOVIEV, S., SOLOVIEVA, O., 2009, “Tsunamis in the Mediterranean Sea 2000 B.C.-2000 A.D.”, Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, Springer, (239 p), with 341 tsunamis in historical times.
  • WIKIPEDIA detailed articles about a few famous earthquakes, and lists of earthquakes and tsunamis.

More data is provided on the latest updated database as an xls table.

Date Location of tsunami Location of earthquake
2000 BC Syrian coast Syrian coast
1600 BC Crete north coast Santorini eruption
1365 BC Levant Ugarit
1300 BC Aegean Sea Troad
1225-1175 BC possible Eastern Med, “Earthquake storm”?
1075 BC possible Larnaca, Salamis (Cyprus)
760-750 BC Levant Levant
590 BC Levant Tyre
550 BC possible Sparta, Syros Island
525 BC Tyre, Saida Tyre, Saida
510 BC Thessalia
500 BC Antioch Antioch
496 BC possible Chios Island
490 BC possible Delos Island
-/3/490 BC possible Aegina Island
29/9/480 BC Aegean Sea Salamis (Saronic Gulf)
479 BC Potidaia (Chalkidiki) North Aegean
469-464 BC Sparta
461 BC possible Rome
436 BC Central Italy
431 BC possible Delos Island
-/12/427 BC possible Attica, Maliakos Gulf
-/7/426 BC Orobiae (North Euboea), Skopelos Island Maliakos Gulf
425 BC possible Etna eruption
-/3/424 BC possible Athens
-/8/420 BC possible Corinth
-/3/414 BC possible Cleonae
-/12/413 BC Sparta
-/12/412 BC possible Kos Island
403-400 BC possible Elis (Peloponnesus)
388 BC possible Argos
372 BC possible Delos Island
373 BC Helike (Gulf of Corinth) Gulf of Corinth (Eliki)
360 BC possible Sea of Marmara, Heraclea Pontica
359 BC Tyrrhenian Sea Vulcano Island eruption
347-346 BC Delphi
334 BC Anatolia
325-320 BC possible Apamea
331 BC possible Syria
330 BC Aegean Sea Lemnos Island, Sporades islands
321 BC possible Naples
321 BC possible Liguria
-/12/304 BC possible West Turkey
303 BC possible Gulf of Corinth
287 BC possible Lysimachia (Hellespont)
-/12/279 BC Delphi
268 BC possible Picenum (Ancona)
231 BC possible Lesbos Island
227 BC South Aegean Sea Rhodes
-/10/223 BC Maliakos Gulf Cytinium, Doris (Greece)
-/6/217 BC Tyrrhenian Sea Liguria & Etruria (Italy)
200 BC possible Samos Island
199-198 BC Levant Saida, Rhodes
199-198 BC possible Chalcis (Eubea)
199-198 BC Aegean Sea Santorini eruption
197 BC possible Lemnos Island
-/3/193 BC possible Rome
192 BC possible Rome
-/9/179 BC possible Rome
-/12/174 BC possible Sabina (Italy)
148-130 BC Tyre-Akko Antioch
133 BC Tyrrhenian Sea Luna (Italy)
126 BC Tyrrhenian Sea Etna eruption
118 BC possible Rome
117-113 BC possible Apulia (Italy)
100 BC possible Picenum (Ancona)
99 BC possible Rome
92 BC Syria-Israel Caesarea Maritima (Israel)
92 BC possible Regio Calabria
90 BC Anatolia
87 BC possible Apamea (NW Turkey)
83 BC possible Rome
76 BC Rieti (Italy)
72-70 possible Rome
65 BC possible Antioch-Cyprus-Black Sea
63 BC Spoletium (Italy)
58 BC Adriatic Sea Albania (Durres)
-/5/56 BC Potentia (Italy)
50 BC possible Delos Island
50 BC possible Rome
50 BC Georgia Sukhumi (Georgia)
47 BC possible Rome
44 BC Alps
43 BC possible Rome
37 BC possible Dafneh (Lebanon)
31 BC Jordan valley
27 BC possible W Turkey, Chios Island
26 BC Pelusion, Paphos Paphos (Cyprus)
23 BC Alexandria Alexandria
17 BC Central Italy
17 BC possible Paphos (Cyprus)
15 BC possible Salamis (Cyprus)
2 BC possible Naples
5 AD possible Rome
15 AD possible Rome
17 AD possible Regio Calabria
17 AD possible Sardis (Lydia)
19 AD possible Saida
20 AD Georgia Sukhumi (Georgia)
22 AD Cibyra (SW Turkey)
23 AD possible Patras
24/11/29 possible Nicea, Bithynia
33 Jordan valley
-/3/37 possible Capri (Naples)
23/3/37 possible Antioch, Dafneh
46 possible Santorini eruption
47 possible Antioch
47 possible Izmir, Samos
50 possible Philippi
50 Bulgaria Hellespont, Black Sea
51 possible Rome
53 possible Turkey, Antioch, Lattakia
53 possible Apamea (NW Turkey)
53? 62? 66? Aegean Sea Santorini eruption
57 possible Albania
60 possible NW Turkey
61 possible Achaia (Peloponnesus)
61 possible Macedonia
05/02/62 ? Pompei
62 Eastern Med Crete (south coast)
64 possible Naples
68 SW Anatolia Patara
-/6/68 possible Rome
69 possible Nicomedia (Bithynia)
20/6/69-79 possible Corinth
20/06/76 Levant Paphos, Kition, Salamis
24/08/79 Bay of Naples Vesuvius eruption
82-94 possible Antioch
97 Nicopolis (Cilicia)
99? Pescolardo (Central Italy)
101-200? Aunobaris (Teboursouk, Tunisia)
101-200 Interpromium (Pescara, Italy)
105 possible Cyme, Pitane (W Turkey)
105 possible Opus, Oreus (Eubea)
110 possible Galatia
13/12/115 Caesarea Maritima Antioch
117-128 possible Italy
120? 128? Sea of Marmara Sea of Marmara
10/10/123 Sea of Marmara Sea of Marmara
127-130 possible Caesarea Maritima (Israel)
142 (141? 148? 155?) Rhodes, Kos, Serifos, Symi Islands Rhodes, Lycia
160 Doura Europos (Syria)
160? 161? possible Sea of Marmara
177 North Sicily Sicily
178 possible Izmir (Turkey)
3/5/181? possible Sea of Marmara
201-300 Anatolia
217 possible Albania
233 Damascus
235-236 Anatolia
241 possible Aphrodisias (Turkey)?
242-245 possible Antioch
251 possible Crete north
258 Tyrrhenian Sea Tyrrhenian Sea
262 East Med SW Anatolia, Libya, Rome
267 Ad Maiores (Besseriani, Algeria)
268-270 possible Sea of Marmara
275-276 possible Rome?
293-306 East Med Salamis (Cyprus)
301-400 possible Corfou
3/4/303 Levant Saida-Tyre-Caesarea
315 Dead Sea Dead Sea
320 possible Alexandria
332 possible Salamis (Cyprus)
334 possible Albania
334-335 possible Kos Island
341 possible Antioch-Beirut
341 Maximianopolis
342 Levant Paphos, Salamis (Cyprus)
343 possible Neocaesarea (Turkey)
11/4/344 possible Salerno (Italy)
344 possible Rhodes
344 Dardanelles Dardanelles
346 Adriatic Sea Albania
346 possible Rome-Naples
348? 349? Levant Beirut-Arwad
351-400 Anatolia
358 possible Albania
24/8/358 Sea of Marmara Sea of Marmara
361 possible Delphi
24/5/362 Dead Sea Dead Sea
2/12/362 Sea of Marmara & Black Sea Sea of Marmara
-/2/363 possible Istanbul
18/5/363 possible Galilee
-/6/363 possible Libya, Corinth, Sicily
21/7/365 Crete, West Pelop, Sicily, Adriatic, Libya, Egypt Western Crete
11/10/368 Sea of Marmara Sea of Marmara
368? 369? possible Germe (W Turkey)
370 possible Paphos (Cyprus), W Anatolia
373 possible Regio Calabria
374 Benevento (Central Italy)
-/11/394 possible Istanbul
396 possible Istanbul
400 possible Libya
402 possible Istanbul
1/4/407 Sea of Marmara Istanbul
408 possible Rome
408-450 possible Crete
-/7/409 possible Istanbul
412 possible Utique (Tunisia)
417 possible Cibyra (SW Turkey)
20/4/417 possible Istanbul
419 possible Antipatris (Israel)
422 possible Istanbul
7/4/423 possible Istanbul
425 possible Jerusalem
426 Euboia Gulf Euboia Gulf
25/8/429 possible Ravenna (Italy)
25/9/437 possible Sea of Marmara
17/4/442 possible Istanbul
443 possible Rome
15/4/443 possible Ravenna (Italy)
26/1/447 Sea of Marmara, Dardanelles Istanbul
11/6/448 possible Crete south
26/1/450 Sea of Marmara Sea of Marmara
450-457 possible Tripoli (Lebanon)
14/9/458 possible Antioch
459 possible Kos Island
460 possible Sea of Marmara, Aegean Sea
472 possible W Turkey
474-478 possible Rhodes
-/9/475 possible Jableh
478 possible Dardanelles
25/9/478 Sea of Marmara Istanbul
485? possible Rome
26/5/492 possible Ravenna (Italy)
494 possible Anatolia
-/9/499 Anatolia
500 possible Antioch, Seleucia
501-525 possible Faenza (Ravenna)
9/10/501 possible Ravenna (Italy)
14/4/502 possible Ravenna (Italy)
22/8/502 Levant Akko-Tyre-Saida-Beirut
506 possible Albania
515 possible Rhodes
518 Dardania (Balkans)
521? 522? possible Durres (Albania)
521? 522? possible Corinth
523? 525? possible Cilicia (Turkey)
29/5/525 Levant Byblos-Saida
20/5/526 Seleucia Antioch, Seleucia, Dafneh
527 possible Pompeiopolis (SE Turkey)
29/11/528 possible Antioch
2/1/529 Lattakia Lattakia (Syria)
-/7/529 possible N Turkey
530 possible Myra (S Turkey)
531-534 possible Antioch-Aleppo-Homs
16/8/542 Sea of Marmara Istanbul
543 possible Corinth
6/9/543 Sea of Marmara Sea of Marmara
-/8/545 Bulgaria Varna (Bulgaria)
-/4/546 possible Istanbul
-/2/548 possible Istanbul
-/1/549 Sea of Marmara Istanbul
551 Maliakos Gulf Maliakos Gulf
-/4/551 Gulf of Corinth Etolia (Greece)
9/7/551 Caesarea-Tyre-Beirut-Tripoli (Leb.) Lebanon
15/8/551 Kos Island, Sporades islands Sporades islands
-/5/552 Gulf of Corinth Itea (Gulf of Corinth)
15/8/554 Sea of Marmara Istanbul
14/10/554 possible Alexandria
554-558 Aegean Sea Kos Island
11/7/555 Sea of Marmara Istanbul
-/8/556 possible Kos Island
19/10/557 possible Istanbul
14/12/557 Sea of Marmara & Black Sea Istanbul
558 Aegean Sea Rhodes
25/12/558 possible Ancona
570 possible Antioch, Seleucia, Cilicia
580 possible Corinth
580-581 possible Antioch-Dafneh
10/5/583 possible Istanbul
584-585 Arabissus (SE Turkey)
-/10/588 possible Antioch-Dafneh
590 Levant Lebanon
597 possible Thracia (Greece)
601-625 Anatolia
601-602 possible Syria-Cilicia
602-603 Surb Karapet (E Turkey)
620 possible Thracia (Greece)
633 Yarmouk valley (Israel)
634 possible Aleppo
-/9/634 Jerusalem
641-668 possible Istanbul, W Turkey
651-700 possible Vulcano Island eruption
-/6/659 Jerusalem
659-660 Jericho (Israel)
672 possible Gaza
677 possible Thracia (Greece)
678 possible Antioch-Cilicia
3/4/679 Sürüç (E Turkey)
700 possible Thessaloniki
28/2/713 possible Antioch-Aleppo
24/12/717 possible Antioch-Aleppo
725-744 possible Ravenna (Italy)
735 Vayoc’Jor (Armenia)
26/10/740 Sea of Marmara Sea of Marmara
743-744 Derbend (Anatolia)
18/1/746 Levant, Egypt Levant, Egypt
18/1/749 Israel Galilee, Baalbek, Damascus
9/3/757 possible Syria
778 possible Treviso (Italy)
17/3/780-797 possible Istanbul
30/4/792 Northern Adriatic Sea Venice
796-797 possible Alexandria
-/4/796 possible Crete
4/5/796 possible Istanbul
800 Ionian Sea Ionian Sea
29/4/801 possible Rome
19/12/803 Bay of Iskenderum Adana (Turkey)
808 Jerusalem
813-820 possible Turkey
5/5/824 possible Panion (Sea of Marmara)
829-842   Turkey
835 possible Antioch
30/12/836 possible Pavia (Italy)
-/6/847 possible Rome
24/11/847 possible Damascus-Antioch
-/6/848 Central Italy
853-854 Lake Tiberias
31/8/853 possible Sicily
3/12/856 possible Tunis
-/12/856 possible Corinth
-/4/857 possible Cairo
30/12/859 Levant Samandag (Turkey)
859-860 possible Maghreb
-/01/860 possible Antioch, Latakkia, Jableh
28/5/862 possible Istanbul
13/2/863 Dvin (Armenia)
9/1/869 possible Istanbul
16/5/881 Akko-Alexandria Levant
-/12/885 possible Cairo
27/12/893 Dvin (Armenia)
894 possible Apulia (Italy)
896 possible Thessaloniki
906 Kargop (Armenia)
911-912 Kairouan (Tunisia)
911-912 possible Egypt
926? 927? possible Thrace (Bulgaria)
4/10/935 possible Egypt
2/7/944 possible Cordoba (Spain)
945 possible Istanbul
25/7/950 possible Cairo
951-1004 possible Rossano (Italy)
15/9/951 possible Alexandria
951-952 possible Aleppo
5/1/956 possible Alexandria
12/5/963 possible Egypt
22/7/963 Sicily Sicily
-/9/967 possible SE Turkey
22/12/968 possible Corfou
1/7/969 possible Egypt
972 possible Antioch, Damascus
26/10/975 Sea of Marmara & Black Sea Istanbul
977-978 possible Mahdia
26/10/989 Sea of Marmara Istanbul
989-990 Central Italy
5/4/991 Levant Baalbek, Damascus
995 Armenia
996 possible Delphi
1002-1003 possible Western Syria
9/3/1011 possible Istanbul
1016 possible Jaffa (Israel)
1029-1030 possible Damascus
5/12/1033 Levant Akko, Jericho (Israel)
1036-1037 Cilicia (Turkey) Cilicia (Turkey)
2/11/1037 possible Istanbul
2/2/1039-1040 Sea of Marmara & Black Sea Istanbul
1042-1043 possible Palmyra-Baalbek
1050 Aegean Sea Santorini eruption
27/8/1063 possible Tripoli (Lebanon)
23/9/1063-1064 Sea of Marmara Istanbul
1065 possible Istanbul
18/3/1068 Levant Israel
1070 possible Beqaa (Lebanon)
6/12/1087 possible Istanbul
1089 possible Palmyra
26/9/1091 possible Antioch
3/1106 Adriatic Sea Venice
20/6/1112 Bay of Naples Naples (Italy)
12/3/1114 Calabrian arc Calabrian arc (Italy)
10/8/1114 Levant Antioch, Samandag
1128 possible Tyre
11/10/1138 possible Aleppo
1140-1141 possible Sheizar (Syria)
1147 possible Gulf of Corinth
1153 possible Gulf of Corinth
8/12/1156 possible Sheizar (Syria)
12/8/1157 possible Hama (Syria), Lattakia, Tripoli (Leb.)
4/2/1169 Messina-Paterno Etna eruption
29/6/1170 Levant Damascus, Lattakia
1172 Sicily Sicily
20/5/1202 Cyprus & Levant Baalbek, Tyre, Damascus, Akko
1211 possible Thessaloniki
11/5/1222 Libya, Alexandria Paphos, Limasol (Cyprus)
11/3/1231 Sea of Marmara Sea of Marmara
1246 possible Crete west
1261 Levant Levant
11/8/1265 Sea of Marmara Marmara Island
1268 possible Adana (Cilicia)
-/3/1270 Ionian Sea Ionian Sea
-/9/1273 Adriatic Sea Albania (Durres)
22/3/1287 possible Lattakia
1/6/1296 possible Istanbul
17/7/1296 possible West Anatolia
1300 possible Corinth
18/8/1303 Crete, Egypt, Syria Rhodes
1321 Adriatic Sea Venice, Delphi
12/5/1327 possible Sea of Marmara
28/6/1329 Sicily Etna eruption
12/2/1332 Sea of Marmara & Black Sea Istanbul
-/1/1339 possible Tripoli (Lebanon)
1/1/1341 possible Crimea
18/10/1343 Sea of Marmara & Black Sea Istanbul
25/11/1343 Bay of Naples Naples (Italy)
2/1/1344 possible Aleppo
14/10/1344 Sea of Marmara & Black Sea Sea of Marmara
19/5/1346 possible Sea of Marmara
25/1/1348 Adriatic Sea Friuli (Trieste)
1/3/1354 possible Sea of Marmara
2/1/1365 Algeria Algiers (Algeria)
30/4/1366 possible Rhodes
1/6/1366 possible North Aegean
1380 possible Albania
1383 possible Lesbos Island
20/3/1389 Aegean Sea Chios & Ikaria islands
-/10/1395 possible Thessaloniki
-/6/1402 Gulf of Corinth Gulf of Corinth
28/7/1402 possible Euboia
16/11/1403 Syria, SE Turkey Aleppo
20/2/1404 Syrian coast Aleppo, Tripoli (Leb.)
-/4/1407 possible Antioch
29/12/1408 Lattakia Bkas, Lattakia, Jableh
1417 possible Sea of Marmara
15/3/1419 possible Istanbul
25/5/1419 possible Istanbul
18/12/1419 Sea of Marmara Istanbul
-/7/1420 possible Thessaloniki
-/12/1420 possible Argos
2/2/1428 possible Camprodon (Catalonia)
26/3/1430 possible Thessaloniki
4/9/1437 possible Sea of Marmara
28/11/1437 Aegean Sea Aegean Sea
-/7/1444 possible Corfou
1451 possible Croatia
16/6/1456 Serbia
12/11/1456 possible North Aegean
5/12/1456 Bay of Naples Naples (Italy)
1457 possible Argolid
1469 possible Kephalonia Island
1471 possible North Aegean
1471 possible Albania
23/4/1481 possible Istanbul
3/5/1481 SW Turkey & Levant Rhodes
10/9/1481 possible Rodigarganico (Italy)
3/10/1481 SW Turkey & Levant Rhodes
15/2/1482 possible Croatia
1489 SW Turkey Antalya (Turkey)
1/11/1490 possible Kos Island
24/4/1491 possible Cyprus
18/8/1493 possible Kos Island
1/7/1494 Eastern Med Crete (Heraklion)
7/12/1504 possible Croatia
29/5/1508 Eastern Med Crete
10/9/1509 Sea of Marmara & Black Sea Istanbul