PALEOSEISMIC STUDIES IN GREECE - A REVIEW

There are numerous reports of ancient human constructions (i) offset a nd destroyed by seismic surface faulting, or (ii) with small displacem ents along horizontal discontinuities testifying to high acceleration effects, or (iii) containing destruction layers below which skeletons of people killed and buried by fallen debris have been found. In these cases, destructions can safely be assigned to earthquakes that can be dated with stylistic archaeological techniques.In coastal areas, on t he other hand, identification of exposed species of the sublittoral zo ne that have escaped erosion in the mid-littoral or supralittoral zone s testify to quick, probably co-seismic uplifts, which can be dated wi th conventional or AMS radiometric techniques. The amplitude of these uplifts is up to 9 m in the Hellenic are, and more than 1 m in the Aeg ean back-arc basin. Finally, two cases of seismic faulting deduced fro m auger core study of the Holocene stratigraphy are reported. Identifi cation of such palaeoseismic effects has important implications for es timation of recurrence intervals and maximum magnitude of seismic shoc ks in study areas.