Significant earthquakes of 60 BC

60 BC Earthquake: Cabo San Vicente, Portugal

60 BC · M8.5

A magnitude 8.5 earthquake struck Cabo San Vicente, Portugal in 60 BC. It caused a tsunami.

Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date
60 BC
Place
Cabo San Vicente, Portugal
Magnitude
8.5
Intensity
X, extreme shaking, on the Modified Mercalli scale
Epicenter
36.000° N, 10.700° W
Country
Portugal
Region
Southern Europe

The toll

Damage
Severe (about $5 to $25 million) with its tsunami and other effects

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

The M=8.5 earthquake dated 60BC is the oldest event often considered in Portuguese earthquake catalogs (LNEC, 1986; Sousa et al., 1992; Martins and Victor, 2001). (reference #4649)

In the text [History of Portugal (first edition 1628)] there is no mentioned of Galicia. It may be that Moreira de Mendoza (1758) is using a different edition. The earthquake is listed by Steikhardt (1932), Munuera (1963) (Mino River), Mezcua and Martinez Solares (SW. Cape S. Vincent) and Martinez-Solares and Mezcua (North of Portugal). The oldest source is Faria who locates it at the coast of Portugal. Ocampo and Mariana do not mention it when they talk on those years about Caesar’s campaign against the followers of Pompey in Spain. The earthquake is based only on the testimony of Faria and we do not know his source. [It] may be considered doubtful. (reference #12774)

[...] Faria reproduces Brito’s account of the earthquake on the Portuguese and Galician coasts in 63 BC (Faria 1678, p. 203), but without citing him, which has led Udias (2015, 2020) to believe that Faria was the original source. (reference #13258)

60 B.C. Earthquake intensity IX, magnitude 6.7. Historical information on seismic events during the Roman possession of the Iberian peninsula is generally rather poor. According to Brito a destructive earthquake was followed by a tsunami. Mendonça and Navarro Neumann report of a tsunami. Effects observed along the coasts of Portugal and Galicia. The sea first flooded coastal villages and then retired leaving many coasts dry. (reference #4139)

60 B.C. 36 N 10 W. Tsunami. SW Cabo San Vicente. (reference #1193)

63 B.C. Earthquake intensity X (reference #4632)

Sources NCEI cites

The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.

  1. #4632 Moreira, Victor Sousa (1979). Contribuicao para o conhecimento da sismicidade histórica de Portugal continental. Revista do Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia e Geofísica, vol. 2, no. 3-4, p. 121-136.
  2. #4649 Baptista, M.A., J.M. Miranda (2009). Revision of the Portuguese catalog of tsunamis. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., vol. 9, p. 25-42. DOI: 10.5194/nhess-9-25-2009
  3. #12774 Udias, Agustin (2015). Historical earthquakes (before 1755) of the Iberian peninsula in early catalogs. (Electronic Supplement:Critical revision of earthquakes in the Iberian peninsula before year 1000). Seismological Research Letters, 86, 999-1005.
  4. #13258 Alvarez-Marti-Aguilar, M. (2022). Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Ancient Iberia: The Historical Sources. In: Alvarez-Marti-Aguilar, M., Machuca Prieto, F. (eds) Historical Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Archaeology in the Iberian Peninsula. Natural Science in Archaeology. Springer, Singapore. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-19-1979-4_3
  5. #4139 Tsunami Risk and Strategies for the European region (TRANSFER) project (2009). Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean Region Tsunami Catalogue (NEAMTWS), retrieved February 2009 from http://www.ioc-tsunami.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=282&Itemid=1102
  6. #1193 Mezcua, J. and J.M. Martinez Solares (1983). Sismicidad del Area Ibero-Mogrebi. Presidencia del Gobierno, Instituto Geografico Nacional, Madrid, 210 p.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

More

Significant earthquakes of 60 BC99 to 1 BCRecent earthquakes near here

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 9734.