Abstract:

The term of seismite was formally proposed by the German geologist Seilacher in 1969 after studying a special rock formation in California, USA, to represent a set of sedimentary rocks formed by earthquake disturbance. Since then, the term has quickly been accepted and developed by the geological community. Although some geologists still have different understandings of this concept, most geologists agree that seismite is a sedimentary rock formation formed by seismic disturbances. So it is also called the ancient earthquake record in the stratum. In 1987 and 1988, Gong Yiming translated seismite into “zhenjiyan” (震积岩),literally meaning “seismic sedimentary rock”. Seismite has been widely used nearly 50 years since its inception, and its Chinese translation of “zhenjiyan” has existed for more than 30 years. There has been no major controversy during this period. But in 2016, Shanmugam began to question the word seismite, citing more than a dozen problems related to the term, and strongly recommended to abandon the term. In the process of introducing Shanmugam’s ideas to China, Mr. Feng Zengzhao suggested changing the Chinese translation of seismite to “dizhenyan”, meaning “seismic rock”. The author of this paper believes that the problems listed by Shanmugam are hardly true scientific issues. The geologists in the sedimentary community have already conducted more detailed and in-depth discussions for many years. The Chinese translations emphasize both the influence of earthquakes and the occurrence of seismite. Gong Yiming’s translation has been widely accepted in China. The new translation includes not only sedimentary rocks, but also magmatic rocks and tectonic rocks formed by the influence of earthquakes, which are quite different from the original English text. Therefore, the authors suggest that seismite should not be abandoned and its Chinese translation still retains Gong Yiming’s original translation name to prevent unnecessary confusion in the academic world.

Key words: seismite, seismic sedimentary rock, seismic rock