As an example of the revision needed of the historical earthquakes of the Iberian Peninsula included in the different catalogs of earthquakes of this region, a critical assessment of the earthquakes before year 1000 is presented. In this revision, I give the catalogs in which each earthquake is included (in chronological order), identify which is the first catalog, and list the historical documents on which each earthquake is based. The pertinent texts are given in English and in the original Spanish, Portuguese, or French. The list of the most recent catalog by Martínez-Solares and Mezcua (2002) is followed, but the earthquakes included in other catalogs, but not in Martínez-Solares and Mezcua (2002), are also discussed. The present official catalog of the Instituto Geográfico Nacional (Madrid, Spain) (http://www.ign.es/ign/layoutIn/sismoFormularioCatalogo.do, last accessed April 2015) reproduces the list of earthquakes of Martinez-Solares and Mezcua (2002) for this period. The catalog begins with an earthquake for the year 880 B.C. This revision of the earthquakes preceding the year 1000 shows the feeble documentary basis for most of the earthquakes included in the catalog for this period and how in some instances earthquakes have passed from one catalog to another without a critical assessment.
Catalog Revision [Adobe Portable Document Format; ~421 KB]. Critical revision of earthquakes in the Iberian peninsula before year 1000.
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