Carlo Meletti

The SHARE European Earthquake Catalogue (SHEEC) 1000–1899

In the frame of the European Commission project “Seismic Hazard Harmonization in Europe” (SHARE), aiming at harmonizing seismic hazard at a European scale, the compilation of a homogeneous, European parametric earthquake catalogue was planned. The goal was to be achieved by considering the most updated historical dataset and assessing homogenous magnitudes, with support from several institutions. This paper describes the SHARE European Earthquake Catalogue (SHEEC), which covers the time window 1000–1899. It strongly relies on the experience of the European Commission project “Network of Research Infrastructures for European Seismology” (NERIES), a module of which was dedicated to create the European “Archive of Historical Earthquake Data” (AHEAD) and to establish methodologies to homogenously derive earthquake parameters from macroseismic data. AHEAD has supplied the final earthquake list, obtained after sorting duplications out and eliminating many fake events; in addition, it supplied the most updated historical dataset. Macroseismic data points (MDPs) provided by AHEAD have been processed with updated, repeatable procedures, regionally calibrated against a set of recent, instrumental earthquakes, to obtain earthquake parameters. From the same data, a set of epicentral intensity-to-magnitude relations has been derived, with the aim of providing another set of homogeneous Mw estimates. Then, a strategy focussed on maximizing the homogeneity of the final epicentral location and Mw, has been adopted. Special care has been devoted also to supply location and Mw uncertainty. The paper focuses on the procedure adopted for the compilation of SHEEC and briefly comments on the achieved results.

The 2013 European Seismic Hazard Model: key components and results

The 2013 European Seismic Hazard Model (ESHM13) results from a community-based probabilistic seismic hazard assessment supported by the EU-FP7 project “Seismic Hazard Harmonization in Europe” (SHARE, 2009–2013). The ESHM13 is a consistent seismic hazard model for Europe and Turkey which overcomes the limitation of national borders and includes a through quantification of the uncertainties. It is the first completed regional effort contributing to the “Global Earthquake Model” initiative. It might serve as a reference model for various applications, from earthquake preparedness to earthquake risk mitigation strategies, including the update of the European seismic regulations for building design (Eurocode 8), and thus it is useful for future safety assessment and improvement of private and public buildings. Although its results constitute a reference for Europe, they do not replace the existing national design regulations that are in place for seismic design and construction of buildings. The ESHM13 represents a significant improvement compared to previous efforts as it is based on (1) the compilation of updated and harmonised versions of the databases required for probabilistic seismic hazard assessment, (2) the adoption of standard procedures and robust methods, especially for expert elicitation and consensus building among hundreds of European experts, (3) the multi-disciplinary input from all branches of earthquake science and engineering, (4) the direct involvement of the CEN/TC250/SC8 committee in defining output specifications relevant for Eurocode 8 and (5) the accounting for epistemic uncertainties of model components and hazard results. Furthermore, enormous effort was devoted to transparently document and ensure open availability of all data, results and methods through the European Facility for Earthquake Hazard and Risk (www.efehr.org).

Major active faults in Italy: available surficial data

An inventory of the available surficial data on active faults in Italy has been compiled by gathering all the available information on peninsular Italy (project by CNR, National Group for the Defense against Earthquakes), the central-eastern Alps and the Po Plain (EC ‘PALEOSIS’ project). Such information has been summarised in maps (reporting surficial expressions of faults with length L≥11 km) and in a table where fault parameters relevant for seismic hazard assessment (e.g. slip rates, recurrence intervals for surface faulting events, etc..) have been reported. Based on the geological characteristics of the Italian territory, a fault has been considered as active if it shows evidence of Late Pleistocene-Holocene displacements. Active faults in Italy are distributed throughout the entire Apennine chain, in the Sicilian and Calabrian regions and in some Alpine sectors, but knowledge is not homogeneously distributed through the territory. The largest amount of data is related to the central Apennines. In contrast, fault geometries and parameters are less well defined in the southern Apennines, Sicily and Calabria, where investigations have started more recently. Knowledge is sparse in the northern Apeninnes, where data necessary to define fault parameters are lacking and also the chronology of the activity has to be considered cautiously. Abundant blind faulting in the Po Plain hinders the detection of active faults by means of the classical surficial investigations and therefore the present knowledge is limited to the Mantova fault. Blind faults and the peculiar recent geological history of the Alpine areas, which is strongly conditioned by the erosional and depositional activity during and after the last glacial maximum, also hinder the identification of active faults in the central-eastern Alps. Some faults in this Alpine sector are believed to be active, but data on their segmentation are still missing. Available information indicates that Italian active faults are usually characterised by slip rates lower than 1 mm/yr. Recurrence intervals for surface faulting events are longer than 1,000 years in the central and southern Apennines. This review on the Italian active faults represents the first step to produce a map of the major seismic sources in Italy, which in turn will result from the merge of surficial data with seismological and geological subsurficial data. The available knowledge gathered in this paper indicates those areas where data are presently sparse. It should be, therefore, possible to better plan future geomorphological and paleoseismological investigations.

On-Line Seismic Hazard Data for the New Italian Building Code

The probabilistic seismic hazard of Italy was assessed in 2004 to match the requirements of the new seismic provisions. This such map, now recognized as the official reference for design according to the building and administrative issues, is the result of a comprehensive seismic hazard model that takes into account the variability in seismicity, seismogenic potential, and propagation in different areas of Italy. Since 2004, we have computed seismic hazard in terms of peak ground acceleration and spectral acceleration values for varied annual probabilities of exceedance, including a measure of their variability. These data allow as to: (1) compute site-specific seismic hazard curves and uniform hazard spectra; (2) anchor the elastic response spectra; and (3) set seismological constraints on the limit states. These seismic hazard data are stored in a database, freely accessible to all end-users via the web, where they can be downloaded or consulted through a WebGIS tool.

A 17th Century Destructive Seismic Crisis in the Gargano Area: Its Implications on the Understanding of Local Seismicity

A significant and partly forgotten series of earthquakes located in the Gargano area (Southern Italy) between 1646 and 1688 AD is critically revised, in the light of newly discovered historical records derived from non local contemporary serial sources (early newspapers and diplomatic reports). The revision is conducted in the frame of a survey of the current state of knowledge on historical Gargano seismicity. Hypotheses on the seismotectonic effects of the evente and their influences on the evaluation of local seismic hazard are also proposed.

Reply to “Comment on ‘Seismic Hazard Assessment (2003–2009) for the Italian Building Code’ by Massimiliano Stucchi, Carlo Meletti, Valentina Montaldo, Helen Crowley, Gian Michele Calvi, and Enzo Boschi” by Marco Mucciarelli and Dario Albarello

In their lengthy comment on Stucchi et al. (2011), Mucciarelli and Albarello (2012) propose opinions on aspects of the study that have been discussed and reviewed in countless circumstances in Italy and internationally, from the very beginning (2003) to the end (2009) of our research. We have the feeling that Mucciarelli and Albarello fail to recognize that the seismic‐hazard assessment was performed in support of the new Italian building code; and therefore, the relevant decisions were made in agreement with numerous committees of the Italian governmental bodies, sometimes after a good deal of negotiation. Such a lack of perspective is surprising, considering that Albarello contributed to the first phase of the project and was a partner in the second phase, where he was funded on the basis of …

Preliminary study on the impact of the introduction of an updated seismic hazard model for Italy

A new hazard model for Italy has recently been proposed; hazard maps have been produced for various return periods, allowing the values of peak ground acceleration (PGA) and spectral accelerations for response periods up to 2 s to be interpolated for each of the 8,101 Italian municipalities. The new model allows for a more refined definition of the hazard in each municipality as compared to the current use of a fixed spectral shape anchored to upper bound 475-year PGA values and scaling factors for different return periods. The aim of this work is to investigate, in a preliminary fashion, the implications that the adoption of the new return-period dependent hazard maps would have on design and assessment of structures. To this end, the seismic performance of reinforced concrete frames of varying height is evaluated assuming they were located in each of the 8,101 municipalities in Italy and the results obtained with the current and the new hazard model are compared. The new model is shown to result in lower seismic risk in the majority of the municipalities.

The role of INGVterremoti blog in information management during the earthquake sequence in central Italy

In this paper, we describe the role the INGVterremoti blog in information management during the first part of the earthquake sequence in central Italy (August 24 to September 30). In the last four years, we have been working on the INGVterremoti blog in order to provide quick updates on the ongoing seismic activity in Italy and in-depth scientific information. These include articles on specific historical earthquakes, seismic hazard, geological interpretations, source models from different type of data, effects at the surface, and so on. We have delivered information in quasi-real-time also about all the recent magnitude M≥4.0 earthquakes in Italy, the strongest events in the Mediterranean and in the world. During the 2016 central Italy, the INGVterremoti blog has continuously released information about seismic sequences with three types of posts: i) updates on the ongoing seismic activity; ii) reports on the activities carried out by the INGV teams in the field and any other working groups; iii) in-depth scientific articles describing some specific analysis and results. All the blog posts have been shared automatically and in real time on the other social media of the INGVterremoti platform, also to counter the bad information and to fight rumors. These include Facebook, Twitter and INGVterremoti App on IOS and Android. As well, both the main INGV home page (http://www.ingv.it) and the INGV earthquake portal ( http://terremoti.ingv.it ) have published the contents of the blog on dedicated pages that were fed automatically. The work done day by day on the INGVterremoti blog has been coordinated with the INGV Press Office that has written several press releases based on the contents of the blog. Since August 24, 53 articles were published on the blog they have had more than 1.9 million views and 1 million visitors. The peak in the number of views, which was more than 800,000 in a single day, was registered on August 24, 2016, following the M 6.0 earthquake.