Raffaele Azzaro

National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | INGV · Etna Observatory

In this paper, we tackle the problem of the intensity attenuation at Ischia, a critical parameter in a high seismic risk area such as this volcanic island. Starting from the new revised catalogue of local earthquakes, we select a dataset of 118 macroseismic observations related to the four main historical events and analyse the characteristics of t...

This work presents the first results of the PANACEA project regarding the assessment of different volcano-related hazards at Mt. Etna (lava and pyroclastic flows, tephra fallout and earthquakes) by exploiting data deriving from the volcano’s history with accurate physical–mathematical models. Volcano-related hazards are distributed differently on E...

Managing multiple hazards simultaneously affecting a territory is a challenge for effective risk mitigation. This is particularly true on active volcanoes like Mt. Etna, characterized by effusive and explosive eruptions, often coupled with intense seismic activity. This work presents the PANACEA project’s approach to treating multi-hazards in terms...

In this paper we describe an advanced database for the site characterization of seismic stations, named “CRISP—Caratterizzazione della RIsposta sismica dei Siti Permanenti della rete sismica” ( http://crisp.ingv.it , quoted with https://doi.org/10.13127/crisp ), designed for the Italian National Seismic Network (Rete Sismica Nazionale, RSN, operate...

At Mt. Etna (Italy), volcano‐tectonic earthquakes produce impressive surface faulting despite their moderate magnitude (M < 5.5), with historically well‐documented ruptures featuring end‐to‐end lengths up to 6–7 km. The 26 December 2018, Mw 5.0 earthquake represents the strongest event of the last 70 years, with ground ruptures extending for 7.5 km...

Mt. Etna is one of the most active volcanoes representing an exceptional natural laboratory for in-depth studies on volcano-tectonic processes. The volcano is well monitored by the INGV-OE seismic and geodetic network onshore given the high population density along its slopes, which have been affected not only by volcanic eruptions but also by dama...

Misterbianco is located on the southern flank of Mt. Etna (Unesco site), in eastern Sicily (Italy). This site, also known as Monasterium Album, has a long and tormented history linked with volcanic activity of Mt. Etna and regional seismicity. This site received much attention in the 2000s when excavation works brought to light a 14th century churc...

The problem of evaluating the statistical dependence among different series of events is often encountered in geophysics. On active volcanoes, the typical question is to relate different phenomena having significant impact in terms of multi-hazard implications. At Mt. Etna volcano, flank eruptions are often related to the occurrence of damaging ear...

In recent years, new approaches for developing earthquake rupture forecasts (ERFs) have been proposed to be used as an input for probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA). Zone-based approaches with seismicity rates derived from earthquake catalogs are commonly used in many countries as the standard for national seismic hazard models. In Italy...

An application for a quick earthquake damage scenario assessment is here presented as a potential tool for planning prevention actions or managing seismic emergencies in the volcanic region of Mt. Etna (Italy). As case-study, we considered the December 26, 2018 earthquake that, with a magnitude M W 4.9, represents the largest event occurring in the...

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2021. 629736/full#supplementary-material https://data.ingv.it/dataset/501#additional-metadata

Ischia is a densely inhabited and touristic volcanic island located in the northern sector of the Gulf of Naples (Italy). In 2017, the Mw 3.9 Casamicciola earthquake occurred after more than one century of seismic quiescence characterized only by minor seismicity, which followed a century with three destructive earthquakes (in 1828, 1881, and 1883)...

Sub-task 2 del Task 7: "Stima quantitativa e modellazione della dipendenza statistica di sismicità ed eruzioni all’Etna, sulla base dei dati storici, con particolare attenzione al possibile legame tra terremoti maggiori ed eruzioni laterali"

Understanding damage to non-structural elements, identifying sources of critical issues, and how damage affects the functionality of facilities are all critical aspects for developing general recommendations concerning disaster risk management. In the present paper a review of non-structural damage caused by recent earthquakes was performed in seve...

In active volcanic zones, fault dynamics is considerably fast but it is often difficult to separate the pattern of nearly continuous large-scale volcanic processes (inflation/deflation processes, flank instability) from impulsive episodes such as dyke intrusions or coseismic fault displacements. At Etna, multidisciplinary studies on active faults w...

We present a set of revised ground-motion models (GMMs) for shallow events at Mt. Etna Volcano. The recent occurrence of damaging events, in particular two of the strongest earthquakes ever instrumentally recorded in the area, has required revising previous GMMs, as these failed to match the observations made for events with local magnitude ML>4.3,...

We provide a database of the surface ruptures produced by the 26 December 2018 Mw 4.9 earthquake that struck the eastern flank of Mt. Etna volcano in Sicily (southern Italy). Despite its relatively small magnitude, this shallow earthquake caused about 8 km of surface faulting, along the trace of the NNW-trending active Fiandaca Fault. Detailed fiel...

On the basis of a critical review of field data related to the dispersal area of ballistic bombs from major explosions and paroxysms occurred at Stromboli, we propose a first probabilistic hazard map of the areas exposed to future events of this kind. First, a conditional probability map, i.e. under the assumption of having a major explosion or a p...

We present a 1:10,000 scale map of the coseismic surface ruptures following the 26 December 2018 Mw 4.9 earthquake that struck the eastern flank of Mt. Etna volcano (southern Italy). Detailed rupture mapping is based on extensive field surveys in the epicentral region. Despite the small size of the event, we were able to document surface faulting f...

The 26 December 2018 Mw 4.9 earthquake occurred at shallow depth (<1 km) on the eastern flank of Mount Etna and it was the strongest seismic event to hit this volcanic area during the past seventy years. The earthquake caused severe damage up to VIII degree EMS [Quest WG, 2019] and impressive surface faulting effects along the Fiandaca Fault (FF),...

In this paper we describe the macroseismic effects produced by the long and destructive seismic sequence that hit Central Italy from 24 August 2016 to January 2017. Starting from the procedure adopted in the complex field survey, we discuss the characteristics of the building stock and its classification in terms of EMS-98 as well as the issues ass...

In this paper we present a multidisciplinary approach aimed at assessing seismic risk regarding non-structural damage. The study has been carried out in the framework of the European KnowRISK Project and focuses on the pilot area of Mt. Etna volcano (Italy). Both instrumental data and as well as macroseismic observations provide unique opportunitie...

We provide a database of the coseismic geological surface effects following the Mw 6.5 Norcia earthquake that hit central Italy on 30 October 2016. This was one of the strongest seismic events to occur in Europe in the past thirty years, causing complex surface ruptures over an area of >400 km2. The database originated from the collaboration of sev...

We present a 1:25,000 scale map of the coseismic surface ruptures following the 30 October 2016 M w 6.5 Norcia normal-faulting earthquake, central Italy. Detailed rupture mapping is based on almost 11,000 oblique photographs taken from helicopter flights, that has been verified and integrated with field data (>7000 measurements). Thanks to the comm...

The volcanic region of Mt. Etna (Sicily, Italy) represents a perfect lab for testing innovative approaches to seismic hazard assessment. This is largely due to the long record of historical and recent observations of seismic and tectonic phenomena, the high quality of various geophysical monitoring and particularly the rapid geodynamics clearly dem...

This paper describes the model implementation and presents results of a probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) for the Mt. Etna volcanic region in Sicily, Italy, considering local volcano-tectonic earthquakes. Working in a volcanic region presents new challenges not typically faced in standard PSHA, which are broadly due to the nature of th...

This paper follows a previous issue of Miscellanea INGV [Emergeo Working Group, 2017] dedicated to the seisms-geological effects produced by the 24 August 2016 Amatrice earthquake. In this work, we present a collection of pictures showing the geological effects produced on either the natural or the built environment by the late October 2016 Visso a...

This paper follows a previous issue of Miscellanea INGV [Emergeo Working Group, 2017] dedicated to the seisms-geological effects produced by the 24 August 2016 Amatrice earthquake. In this work, we present a collection of pictures showing the geological effects produced on either the natural or the built environment by the late October 2016 Visso a...

The volcanic region of Mt Etna (Sicily, Italy) represents a perfect lab for testing innovative approaches to seismic hazard assessment, given the availability of a long record of historical and recent observations of seismic and tectonic phenomena, the high quality of various geophysical monitorings and especially because the very fast geodynamics...

This paper describes the model implementation and presents results of a probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) for the Mt Etna volcanic region in Sicily, Italy considering local volcano-tectonic earthquakes. Working in a volcanic region presents new challenges not typically faced in more standard PSHA, which are most broadly due to the natu...

A preliminary study targeting to evaluate the local seismic response was performed in the eastern flank of Mt. Etna (southern Italy) using ambient noise measurements. The obtained spectral ratios were subdivided through cluster analysis into different classes of fundamental frequency permitting to draw an iso-frequency contour map. The analysis set...

On 24 August 2016, a Mw 6.0 normal-faulting earthquake struck central Italy, causing about 300 fatalities and heavy damage. A geological survey collected the coseismic effects observed at the surface in order to evaluate two competing hypotheses about their nature: surface faulting versus gravitational deformation. We find that the most significant...

Augmented Reality (AR) is a new way to interact with the world around us by means of the alteration of reality perceived through specific sensors. Virtual elements are indeed overlapped to our visual perception using a video camera or special glasses. In the light of this experience, the AR user will see real images mixed with virtual objects and m...

Nella Struttura Terremoti dell’INGV la Linea di Attività T5 “Sorveglianza sismica ed operatività post- terremoto” si occupa delle attività di sviluppo di strumenti e procedure per la valutazione in tempo reale degli effetti di terremoti e tsunami e della gestione delle emergenze sismiche. Uno dei suoi obiettivi del 2015 era la formalizzazione dei p...

The 24 August 2016 earthquake very heavily struck the central sector of the Apennines among the Lazio, Umbria, Marche and Abruzzi regions, devastating the town of Amatrice, the nearby villages and other localities along the Tronto valley. In this paper we present the results of the macroseismic field survey carried out using the European Macroseism...

In the framework of INGV Earthquake Department organization, the Research Activity named "Sorveglianza sismica ed operatività post-terremoto" (Seismic survey and post-earthquake operativity" (T5) takes care of the development of tools and procedures for the real time evaluation of earthquake effects and the management of seismic emergency. One of m...

The eastern flank of the Mount Etna strato volcano is affected by extension and is slowly sliding eastward into the Ionian Sea. The Pernicana fault system forms the border of the northern part of this sliding area. It consists of three E-W–oriented fault sectors that are seismically active and characterized by earthquakes up to 4.7 in magnitude (M)...

In the present paper we describe the on-land field operations integrated in the TOMO-ETNA experiment carried out in June-November 2014 at Mt. Etna volcano and surrounding areas. This terrestrial campaign consists in the deployment of 90 short-period portable three-component seismic stations, 17 broadband seismometers and the coordination with 133 p...

Ground motion scenarios for Mt. Etna are created using synthetic simulations with the program EXSIM. A large data set of weak motion records is exploited to identify important input parameters which govern the modeling of wave propagation effects, such as Q-values, high frequency cut-off and geometrical spreading. These parameters are used in the s...

L’ultima versione del Database Macrosismico Italiano chiamata DBMI15 è stata rilasciata a luglio 2016 e aggiorna e sostituisce la precedente, DBMI11 (Locati et al., 2011). DBMI fornisce un set di dati di intensità macrosismica relativo ai terremoti italiani nella finestra temporale 1000-2014. I dati provengono da studi di autori ed enti diversi, si...

The latest version of the Italian Macroseismic Database, DBMI15, has been released in July 2016, and replaces the prevision version, called DBMI11 (Locati et al., 2011). DBMI makes available a set of macroseismic intensity data related to Italian earthquakes and covers the time-window 1000-2014. Intensity data derive from studies by authors from va...

The project KnowRISK (Know your city, Reduce seISmic risK through non-structural elements) is financed by the European Commission to develop prevention measures that may reduce non-structural damage in urban areas. Pilot areas of the project are within the three European participating countries, namely Portugal, Iceland and Italy. Non-structural co...

In the framework of the UPStrat-MAFA project, a seismic hazard assessment has been undertaken in the volcanic region of Mt. Etna as a first step in studies aimed at evaluating the risk on an urban scale. The analysis has been carried out with the SASHA code which uses macroseismic data in order to calculate, starting from the site seismic history,...

The Disruption Index is used here for the assessment of urban disruption in the Mt. Etna area after a natural disaster. The first element of the procedure is the definition of the seismic input, which is based on information about the historical seismicity and seismogenic faults. The second element is the computation of the seismic impact on the bu...

A procedure for seismic risk assessment is applied to the Mt. Etna area (eastern Sicily, Italy) through assessment of urban system dysfunction following the occurrence of an earthquake.The tool used is based on the Disruption Index as a concept implemented in Simulator QuakeIST, which defines urban disruption following a natural disaster. The first...

At Mt. Etna (Sicily, Italy), the Timpe fault system is a structurally homogeneous domain characterized by a high seismic potential; several considerations led us to assume that faults are, on average, constantly loaded in time, supporting the idea that the faults behaviour is controlled by tectonic processes more than magma-induced, transient, stre...

Mount Etna, together with Vesuvius, are probably the two volcanoes with the longest and most detailed historical records in the world. About ten years ago, the most recent portion of the huge historical data set of Etna was used to compile a macroseismic catalogue of earthquakes occurring in this region from 1832 to 1998 [Catalogo Macrosismico dei...