Dragos Toma-Danila

National Institute for Earth Physics · Laboratory of Engineering Seismology

Seismic loss estimation analysis for large cities is a very demanding yet necessary task; the modelling of such complex systems requires first of all insightful input data at good resolution, referring to local effects, buildings and socio-economic aspects. Also, the implementation of less empirical estimation methods is needed. Until recently, the...

Measuring seismic vulnerability is a complex and valuable endeavor. It allows us to focus resources where they are critically needed. In this research a variety of data was used to identify the most vulnerable areas in Bucharest in case of an earthquake. Socio-economic data from censuses in 2002 and 2011 were used to generate an overall spatial vul...

Due to their widespread and continuous expansion, transportation networks are considerably exposed to natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods, landslides or hurricanes. The vulnerability of specific segments and structures among bridges, tunnels, pumps or storage tanks can translate not only into direct losses but also into significant indirect...

The aim of this article is to analyze the background, current status, and outlook of seismic monitoring products and services in Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine. These countries manage seismic networks that contribute to the European Integrated Data Archive node in the framework of the Observatories and Research Facilities for European Seis...

Earthquakes can generate a significant number of casualties within seconds, as well as high economic losses. The lack of rapid and coordinated emergency intervention can contribute to much greater losses. In this paper we develop a framework taking advantage of the ArcGis Network Analyst extension, able to account for post-earthquake conditions and...

Especially after the March 4, 1977 disastrous Vrancea earthquake (Mw 7.4), the necessity for a detailed local seismic hazard map for Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, was recognized. The distribution of earthquake effects as well as subsequent earthquake recordings throughout the city revealed a high variability of seismic ground motion, not...

In the past decades, the necessity for detailed earthquake microzonation studies was recognized for Bucharest city first because significant damage occurred here during the last major earthquakes, as well as for other densely populated cities in Romania exposed to major seismic risk due to the intermediate-depth earthquakes occurring in Vrancea zon...

The global development of society requires constant updating of the objectives that education pursues and how they are achieved. Science education is an area undergoing advanced transformation, both at the level of objectives and methodologies, with a strong social, economic, and knowledge impact. Research-based education is a well-established term...

Earthquakes are one of the most challenging natural hazards to manage by emergency situation authorities: they are unpredictable, can cause widespread losses in a matter of seconds and can trigger additional hazards (tsunamis, landslides, explosions etc.). Quick reliable information is vital for an effective rapid response, considering that life ex...

In local seismic hazard studies, a first step is to have a precise local determination of the parameters of shallow soil layers which are very important input data in order to determine the local response under various seismic scenarios. The results will determine the local variability of the soil package down to a level that may induce significant...

In the present study an effort to propose appropriate Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs), for the service named Rapid Earthquake Damage Assessment System (REDAS) in the Black Sea basin, is attempted. Emphasis of GMPEs harmonization is given in the Cross Border Areas (CBA). For this reason, two distinct sub-areas are investigated taking into...

Can previous earthquake experiences still be mobilising and relevant nowadays, in Romania? 45 years have passed since the Vrancea 4 March earthquake-the most destructive in the country's history, but the level of seismic risk is probably higher than ever. Re-interpreted old data and new ways of telling the story of earthquakes can certainly boost i...

The Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) and Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems can significantly contribute to seismic risk mitigation in regions with high seismic hazard. Romania, a country periodically affected by strong earthquakes with magnitude > 7.0 occurring in the the Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic zone benefits from both systems. Fo...

This contribution illustrates the methodology developed within the EU-funded project TURNkey to identify the fundamental vibration period and predict damage states of monitored buildings by using accelerometric sensor data. Key findings are given for the experimental case study (in terms of period identification and damage predictions) and a set of...

Education, outreach, and training (EOT) programs are essential for the dissemination of results and to fulfilling the broader impact of any important research institution. These programs have the potential of attracting the next generation of researchers to the field, increasing the interest of K-12 students in pursuing careers in science, technolo...

The Internet of things concept empowered by low-cost sensor technologies and headless computers has upscaled the applicability of vibration monitoring systems in recent years. Raspberry Shake devices are among those systems, constituting a crowdsourcing framework and forming a worldwide seismic network of over a thousand nodes. While Raspberry Shak...

Pământul este într-o transformare continuă; la fel și lumea în care trăim. Cutremurele fac parte din această transformare, chiar dacă impactul lor asupra noastră poate fi dramatic. Hazardul seismic nu poate fi controlat, în schimb riscul seismic da – atâta timp cât lecțiile trecutului sunt învățate, iar noile rezultate ale științei și tehnologiei s...

The PREVENT project's main objective is to systemize the research outcomes and the computational capabilities in order to develop, implement and test an integrated dynamic platform for civil structures monitoring. The present paper focuses on the description of the instrumentation setup, dataflow, the platform architecture and preliminary results f...

The seismic instrumentation of structures in order to assess their condition and to track it over long periods or after representative events has proven to be a topic of large interest, under continuous development at international level. The seismic hazard of Romania poses one of the most dangerous threats for the country, in terms of potential ph...

Vrancea seismogenic zone in the South-Eastern Carpathians is characterized by localized intermediate-depth seismicity. Due to its complex geodynamics and large strain release, Vrancea represents a key element in the Carpatho-Pannonian system. Data from a recently compiled catalogue of fault plane solutions (REFMC) are inverted to evaluate stress re...

The mechanisms involved in the geodynamic evolution and the links with present day seismicity in and around an active orogenic area such as Vrancea area, located at the arc bend of the SouthEastern Carpathians in Romania, are of fundamental importance for studies concerning the seismic hazard assessment in Romania. The task is attempted through the...

As part of the development of a European Seismic Risk Model 2020 (ESRM20), the spatial and temporal evolution of seismic design across Europe has been studied in order to better classify reinforced concrete buildings (which represent more than 30% of the approximately 145 million residential, commercial and industrial buildings in Europe) and map t...

The management of emergency situations generated by natural or man-made disasters is a worldwide critical task for both public and private entities. In Romania, seismic hazard represents one of the most dangerous threats, in terms of potential physical and socioeconomic losses. In recent years, taking advantage of the new technology developments an...

In order for strategies in seismic risk mitigation to be effective, they need to consider both the level of risk but also the needs and attitude of people subjected to the desired change. Questionnaires are one of the most common tools to assess the perception and preparedness of people to earthquakes, however we found that many designs and interpr...

REFMC 1929 - 2012 (Romanian Earthquake Focal Mechanism Catalogue) was compiled by Mircea Radulian, Andrei Bălă and Dragoș Toma-Dănilă from the National Institute for Earth Physics (INFP), Romania (http://www.infp.ro/) and comprises of earthquakes in Romania, in the 1929 - 2012 period, for which we were able to compute or retrieve focal mechanism pa...

In case of a major earthquake in the Vrancea area, Bucharest can be significantly affected (as it happened in 1940 and 1977). As highlighted by these events, the need for establishing mobile first aid facilities close to affected areas (deployment of medical containers or mobile hospitals) is expected to be of high importance for saving lives. In t...

Analyzing the partitioning of stress and deformation in active orogenic settings is of fundamental importance for understanding the mechanisms driving the geodynamic evolution and seismicity, particularly in complex orogenic settings. In this respect, a quantitative understanding is obtained by coupling the large-scale geodynamic evolution with par...

Building exposure and vulnerability models for seismic risk assessment have been the focus of a number of European projects in recent years, but there has never been a concerted effort among the research community to produce a uniform European risk model. The European Commission’s Horizon 2020 SERA project has a work package that is dedicated to th...

Abstract. Due to their widespread and continuous expansion, transportation networks are considerably exposed to natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods, landslides or hurricanes. The vulnerability of specific segments and structures such as bridges, tunnels, pumps or storage tanks can translate not only in direct losses but also in significant...

Romania is one of the most seismic-prone countries in Europe due to the periodically occurrence of strong intermediate-depth earthquakes in Vrancea seismogenic zone. The Vrancea area is located beneath the South-Eastern Carpathian Arc bend, at the contact between the East - European plate and the Intra-Alpine and Moesian sub-plates. An intense seis...

The purpose of this research is to analyze the data recorded on instrumented structures in Bucharest and adjacent free-field seismic stations during the last moderate earthquake that occurred on 28th of October 2018 in the Vrancea seismic zone. The earthquake had a 5.5 moment-magnitude, a depth of 147.8 km, and it was felt on a large area of Romani...

Fault plane solutions for earthquakes recorded in Romania (1929–2012) are analysed on three depth levels: crust (0–50 km), upper (50–110 km) and lower segment (110–201 km). For the Vrancea intermediate-depth source reverse faulting is predominant. However, local-scale variations occur at the upper and lower limits of the active volume: normal fault...

Pentru a vedea turul accesați http://www.infp.ro/index.php?i=srv44 sau direct https://arcg.is/5PzKe. Acesta reprezintă o plimbare „digitală” prin Centrul Bucureștilor (Zona Universitate-Magheru-Calea Victoriei), în cadrul căreia spunem povestea trecutului (experiența cutremurelor din 1940, 1977 și nu numai), prezentului și a perspectivelor de redu...

The main goal of this article is to decode the seismicity of the Eastern part of Romania and its correlations with the active tectonic (faults systems) present in the area, in order to create a specific database for seismic hazard assessment process and also describing the faults in SHARE manner and thus to fill a gap in the project. By analyzing t...

The main goal of this article is to decode the seismicity of the Eastern part of Romania and its correlations with the active tectonic (faults systems) present in the area, in order to create a specific database for seismic hazard assessment process and also describing the faults in SHARE manner and thus to fill a gap in the project. By analyzing t...

The purpose of this paper is to present the most comprehensive catalogue of focal mechanisms for Romanian earthquakes which occurred between 1929 and 2000 in the Carpathian Orogen, the Moesian and Moldavian Platforms, and the Transylvanian Basin. The present catalogue (REFMC) is a first step toward creating a centralized and continuous database of...

Through this paper we propose and test a GIS framework that addresses the issue of seismic risk due to urban road network failure. The approach relies on full GIS integration, on MonteCarlo simulations for generating potentially disrupted network configurations, considering also the damage probability due to direct earthquake implications, and on t...

Earthquake mechanism information is fundamental to determine the stress field and to define seismogenic zones. At the same time, it is a basic input to compute seismic hazard by deterministic approach. The present paper extends the catalogue of the fault plane solutions for the earthquakes in Romania, previously completed until 1997, for 1998-2012...

Romania is one of Europe's countries with the greatest seismic hazard, mainly due to major earthquakes originating in the subcrustal Vrancea Source. A future major earthquake could be a shock, therefore it is vital to estimate in actual context the size and distribution of losses, based on scenarios (leading to seismic mitigation), but also in real...

In the context of an ever-increasing exposure, the estimation of direct and indirect earthquake impact is vital to building resilient societies. As recent events showed, road networks are an essential support for rapid intervention and long-term recovery, but they can also be severely affected by seismic and seismically-triggered events, leading to...

Earthquake mechanism information is fundamental to determine the stress field and to define seismogenic zones. At the same time, it is a basic input to compute seismic hazard by deterministic approach. The present paper extends the catalogue of the fault plane solutions for the earthquakes in Romania, previously completed until 1997, for 1998-2012...

Earthquake mechanism and fault plane solution information is fundamental to determine the stress field and to define seismogenic and active tectonic zones. At the same time, it is a basic input to compute seismic hazard by deterministic approach. The purpose of this paper is to update the catalogue of the fault plane solutions for Romanian earthqua...

Earthquake mechanism information is fundamental to determine the stress field and to define seismogenic zones. At the same time, it is a basic input to compute seismic hazard by deterministic approach. The present paper extends the catalogue of the fault plane solutions for the earthquakes in Romania, previously completed until 1997, for 1998 – 201...

First results about cmstal models were obtained from various geophysical and seismological methods applied in Romania in the last part of XX centmy. A thorough interpretation of these data lead to the firs:t paitial models of cmstal stm cture in the western pa1t of Romania. In the first years after 2000 two regional seismic refraction lines were pe...

The Vrancea seismogenic zone denotes a peculiar source of seismic hazard which represents a major concern in Europe, especially to Romania and neighbouring regions from Bulgaria, Serbia and Republic of Moldova. The strong seismic events that can occur in this area can generate the most destructive effects in Romania and may affect high-risk manmade...

Abstract Earthquake mechanism and fault plane solution information is fundamental to determine the stress field and to define seismogenic and active tectonic zones. At the same time, it is a basic input to compute seismic hazard by deterministic approach. The purpose of this paper is to update the catalogue of the fault plane solutions for Romanian...

In the years 1999 - 2000 two regional seismic refraction lines were performed within a close cooperation with German partners from University of Karlsruhe. One of these lines is Vrancea 2001, with 420 km in length, almost half of them recorded in Transylvanian Basin. The structure of the crust along the seismic line revealed a very complicated crus...

In this paper we highlight the capabilities and advantages of GIS, through an explicit analysis of its contribution within different studies of seismic hazard and risk assessment. These studies are related to Romania – one of Europe’s countries with the highest seismic risk, mainly due to intermediate-depth earthquakes originating in the Vrancea Zo...

Recent seismic events show that urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to seismic damage, which leads to unprecedented levels of risk. Cities are complex systems and as such their analysis requires a good understanding of the interactions between space and the socioeconomic variables characteristic of the inhabitants of urban space. There is a cle...

Ionospheric TEC (Total Electron Content) variations and Low Frequency (LF) signal amplitude data prior to five moderate earthquakes (Mw≥5) occurred in Romania, in Vrancea crustal and subcrustal seismic zones, during the last decade were analyzed using observations from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and the European INFREP (Internati...

Seismology is a geoscience often perceived by uninstructed broad audiences as unreliable or inconsistent, since it cannot predict future earthquakes or warn about them effectively; this criticism disregards important achievements that seismology has offered during its more than 100 years of history-such as evidence of Earth’s inner structure, knowl...

The paper has as final goal the probabilistic assessment of seismic hazard in the Black Sea area as input for the tsunami hazard evaluation. Maximum and most expected magnitudes and their recurrence periods have been computed for all defined seismogenic sources from the marine area, and hazard curves have been plotted.

In this study we have used the most reliable and homogeneous seismic datasets at the European scale, covering historical and modern instrumental seismicity until present days for the Eastern part of Romania and the Black Sea Area for computing the statistical parameters of seimogenic sources and assessing the probabilistic hazard in the South Easte...

The MOBEE project intends to tackle a very problematic topic for the present and future of Romania: the quality of education, in the perspective of a future major earthquake. And not just in a declarative, formal way, but in a practical manner, by translating modern approaches from science, arts and computer science into end-products with a direct...

INTRODUCTION The main purpose of the study is to decipher the seismicity of the Black Sea areal from a tectonic perspective. By analyzing the active faults from onshore and offshore Black Sea coast we aim to evaluate the tsunamogenetic potential. In order to delimit the seismic sources, the following elements have been taken into account:-depth of...

As a result of the continuous development in the last ten years of the network of the permanent broadband stations in Romania, valuable data for seismicity and crustal structure studies is now available, especially for the western part. Complementary to this national dataset, maintained and developed in the National Institute for Earth Physics, new...

One of the strongest earthquake in Romania was the Vrancea earthquake on 10 November 1940, with moment magnitude 7.7 and depth of 150 km. This event caused significant losses over a wide territory, up to Iasi and Craiova cities. The number of casualties in Romania was around 593 dead and 1271 injured and 65,000 homes were destroyed. A major questio...

Bucharest is among the European capitals most vulnerable to earthquakes. Although located at a relatively large epicentral distance (about 140–160 km) from Vrancea area, Bucharest has suffered much destruction and loss of life during great Vrancea earthquakes. In the last century, November 10th, 1940 earthquake (Mw = 7.7) caused the completely coll...

Seismic hazard is quantified by three parameters: level of severity, and spatial and temporal measurements. Thus, the purpose of a seismic hazard assessment is to determine these three parameters from instrumental, historical and geological observations. The characterization of earthquake ground motion for engineering applications generally involve...