The SMDB is part of the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC). At the 1994 EMSC General Assembly in Rome, the development of this database was defined as the major activity of the Center of Geophysical Data Studies and Telematics Applications (CGDS: http://perun.wdcb.rssi.ru/SMDB) in its capacity of theEMSC key nodal member .

The SMDB includes :

• Parametric information on signals that form the database (seismic events,stations, recording instruments, and waveforms).
• Digital waveforms (time series) of the three component strong motion records.
• Scanned photo-images (bitmap files) of the historical strong motion records.