Information on prehistoric earthquakes are needed to extend the instrumental and historical earthquake catalogues for large damaging events (Magnitude Mw > 6). This allows us to better constrain their return periods, which is of interest in particular for areas of moderate seismicity such as Switzerland. Moreover, paleo-seismological methods provide information to define the maximum magnitudes to be expected for a probabilistic seismic hazard assessment.
Traces of prehistoric earthquakes can be found in the geological record and are represented by primary effects such as fault ruptures or secondary effects such landslides, sediment liquefaction, tsunami deposits and broken speleothems in caves. A reliable compilation of dated traces is highly useful in reconstructing paleo-earthquakes. Lake sediments are sensitive to seismic shaking and, moreover, provide very high temporal resolution with continuous sedimentation. Thus, they represent a suitable archive for paleoseismology.
Within our research we primarily apply lacustrine paleoseismology comparing then our results with paleoseismological evidence from other archives.
