A brief history of a restless vision: seismological research in Venezuela

Abstract

Seismological research in Venezuela has managed to survive in the Twentieth century in spite of having produced only two catalogues for public consultation in a period of sixty years, the last of them being published in 1999. However, great investigators, national and foreign, gave their best years to scientific knowledge. Through their restlessness and attitudes, the perspective of the science of earthquakes was constructed. Watching through their eyes, and by means of the 1812 earthquakes, the most controversial and important in this country, the history of the Venezuelan seismology is revealed in this paper. Amidst discussions and ruins, opening footpaths on destructive earthquakes, Venezuelan seismology began to build its own vision.