Revision of the Azorean catalogue of tsunamis

The Azores islands, owing to their complex geographical and geodynamic setting, are exposed to tsunami events associated with different triggering mechanisms, local or distant. Since the settlement of the Azores, in the fifteenth century, there have been numerous accounts that relate coastal area flooding episodes with unusually high waves that caused death and destruction. In this work is presented a review and a characterization of the different events registered in the archipelago that can be associated with tsunamigenic phenomena. For this purpose, diverse documentation was collected such as chronics, manuscripts, newspaper articles and magazines, scientific publications and international databases available online. Thus, new relevant information allowed better characterization of some events. Furthermore, it was possible to add new entries and to discard others included in previous compilations owing to a lack of quality in historical sources or instrumental records. Some teletsunamis, among them the 1 November 1755 which killed six people on Terceira Island, regional and local tsunamis were identified. Although the majority of these events result from tectonic sources, some were also triggered by landslides, such as the 9 July 1847 Quebrada Nova tsunami which killed 10 people on Flores and Corvo islands, and by meteorological phenomena.