The use of distinct disciplines to investigate past earthquakes

The investigation of past earthquakes can be approached in many different ways with a large variety of methods and techniques. This is mainly due to the complexity of this natural phenomenon in both its genetic aspects and consequential ones. In the present note, we briefly analyse the peculiarities of Instrumental Seismology, Historical Seismology, Archaeoseismology and Earthquake Geology, but especially we emphasise the major differences among these four distinct approaches. In order to better define and clearly separate these disciplines, in terms of appropriate tools to be applied and possible outcomes to be expected, an alternative point of view is proposed based on the source of information and not on a chronological distribution as commonly accepted in the literature. Although multidisciplinarity is a common approach for investigating past earthquakes, each one of the discussed disciplines has its own peculiarities, advantages and limitations, and researchers should be aware of this.