The ISC-GEM Global Instrumental Earthquake Catalogue (1900–2009): Introduction

• We introduce the ISC-GEM Global Instrumental Earthquake Catalogue (1900–2009).
• We give a brief historical account of developments in global observational seismology.
• Overall parameter homogeneity was achieved despite changes in observational practices.

In this introductory article we give a general description of the ISC-GEM Global Instrumental Earthquake Catalogue (1900–2009). We also provide the background for four further articles that describe the effort in collecting and digitizing parametric earthquake bulletin data as well as the methodologies developed to compute homogeneous earthquake parameters.The result of the two and a half year project is a catalogue of approximately 20,000 large earthquakes covering 110 years with hypocentres and uncertainties computed using the same technique and velocity model. We show that the overall homogeneity of the main earthquake parameters in the catalogue was achieved despite changes in instrumentation and routine measurement practices concurrent with developments in instrumental seismology from almost a ground level to its current state.For each earthquake, MW magnitude values and uncertainties were computed either based on available estimates of seismic moment or using new empirical relationships between MW, MS and mb. Further important results of this project include the electronic availability of a considerable volume of seismic wave arrival time and amplitude measurements from early instrumental printed station bulletins. These newly recovered amplitude measurements provided a basis for computation of many previously unavailable MS magnitudes with uncertainties.In this article we describe why such a catalogue is required for a comprehensive assessment of global and regional seismic hazard. We also describe other potential uses of the catalogue in many other fields of Earth Sciences. We discuss the catalogue availability and lay out the plans of further development.