Before CHARNET: a rare 1973 album of the first seismic stations of the Caucasus

1931first station in Armenia

From the institute archive

Seismic Stations of the Caucasus

Photo album · Tbilisi, “Metsniereba”, 1973 · 500 copies

Stations in the Caucasus32
In Armenia5
Oldest in the regionTbilisi, 1899

An original copy is kept at IGES

In the institute archive we have found a rare book: the photo album Seismic Stations of the Caucasus, prepared by the Institute of Geophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR and the Caucasus Zonal Centre of Seismic Observations, and printed in Tbilisi in 1973 in only 500 copies. Page by page it shows every seismic station that was working in the Caucasus at the time: the building, the pavilion with its instruments, the year it opened and the seismographs installed in it.

According to the album, 32 regional and general-type stations were operating in the Caucasus: 16 in Georgia, 5 in Armenia, 7 in Azerbaijan and 4 in the North Caucasus. The oldest of them was Tbilisi, recording since 1899; Baku followed in 1903. The Armenian part of the album is titled “Seismological stations of the Institute of Geophysics and Engineering Seismology of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR”: these are the stations of our institute.

Map of the seismic stations of the Caucasus, 1973 — Map of the seismic stations of the Caucasus from the album. In Armenia: ЛН Leninakan, С Stepanavan, ЕР Yerevan, ВРД Vardenis, ГРС Goris.

The first five stations of Armenia

How the network grew

1931Yerevan — the first seismic station in Armenia. Seismographs SK and VEGIK
1946Leninakan (today Gyumri), the city where the institute was founded in 1961. Seismographs SKM-3, VEGIK, SKD, SD-1
1950Stepanavan in the north. Seismographs SKM-3 and SKD
1951Goris in the south. Seismograph VEGIK
1964Vardenis, near Lake Sevan. Seismograph SKM-3

Source: Seismic Stations of the Caucasus, Tbilisi, 1973

Yerevan, since 1931

Yerevan seismic station — Yerevan. Working since 1931. Seismographs SK and VEGIK.

Leninakan (Gyumri), since 1946

Leninakan has the largest section among the Armenian stations. Besides the building and the instrument pavilion, the album shows the station’s control panel, already a modern installation for its time.

Leninakan seismic station — Leninakan. Working since 1946.

Seismographs in the Leninakan pavilion — Leninakan. Working since 1946.

Control panel of the Leninakan seismic station — Leninakan. Control panel of the seismic station.

Stepanavan, since 1950

Stepanavan seismic station — Stepanavan. Working since 1950.

Seismographs in the Stepanavan pavilion — Stepanavan. Working since 1950.

Goris, since 1951

Goris seismic station — Goris. Working since 1951. Seismograph VEGIK.

Vardenis, since 1964

The youngest of the five, near Lake Sevan, equipped with an SKM-3 seismograph. The album illustrates it with the same photographs as Stepanavan, so we do not repeat them here.

The oldest station of the Caucasus

Tbilisi seismic station — Tbilisi. Working since 1899, the oldest station in the album.

From paper drums to a digital network

In 1973 the stations of Armenia recorded earthquakes with ink and photographic paper on rotating drums. Half a century later the same places, Gyumri first of all, are part of the digital CHARNET network, which records earthquakes in Armenia and around the world in real time. The album is a reminder of the people and the stations on which today’s seismology of Armenia was built.

Source: Seismic Stations of the Caucasus. Photo album. Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, Institute of Geophysics; Caucasus Zonal Centre of Seismic Observations. Tbilisi: Metsniereba, 1973. 500 copies. Photographs reproduced from the copy kept at IGES.