Stefano Pucci

National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | INGV · Section of Seismology and Tectonophysics

Fault slip is a complex natural phenomenon involving multiple spatiotemporal scales from seconds to days to weeks. To understand the physical and chemical processes responsible for the full fault slip spectrum, a multidisciplinary approach is highly recommended. The Near Fault Observatories (NFOs) aim at providing high-precision and spatiotemporall...

The NE‐dipping Anghiari normal fault, bounding to the west the Sansepolcro basin in the Upper Tiber Valley (northern Apennines), is thought to be a synthetic splay of the Altotiberina low‐angle normal fault (LANF), an active ENE‐dipping extensional detachment whose seismogenic behavior is debated. In order to assess the Anghiari fault capability to...

The Val d’Agri (VA) oilfield in the Lucanian Apennines (southern Italy), represents the largest onshore in Europe. Since the 1990's, hydrocarbons are produced from a fractured carbonate reservoir with an average extraction rate of 7*104 barrels/day of oil and 3*106 Smc/day of gas. Part of the wastewater has been re-injected since 2006 into a margin...

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...

The footwall of the surface rupturing Paganica normal fault, the source of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake (Mw 6.1) in the Central Apennines (Italy), was investigated using integrated geological and geomorphological approaches. The aim was to constrain the active tectonics by studying the Raiale River that orthogonally crosscuts the fault trace, where...

On 29 December 2020, a shallow earthquake of magnitude Mw 6.4 struck northern Croatia, near the town of Petrinja, more than 24 hours after a strong foreshock (Ml 5). We formed a reconnaissance team of European geologists and engineers, from Croatia, Slovenia, France, Italy and Greece, rapidly deployed in the field to map the evidence of coseismic e...

The Vettore–Bove normal fault system in central Italy ruptured during the 2016 MW 6.5 Norcia earthquake causing extensive surface faulting. At the Pian Grande di Castelluccio hanging wall basin, along the southern section of the fault ruptured during the MW 6.5 mainshock, we performed a high‐resolution seismic reflection/refraction experiment aimed...

Geodetic benchmark displacement measurements following the 2020 Petrinjaearthquakein Croatia.

We investigated the late Quaternary throw distribution of the main normal fault that ruptured during the Mw 6.52016 earthquake in central Italy by means of a high-resolution structure-from-motion (SfM)-derived Digital Surface Model (DSM). We focused on a key area along the Cordone del Vettore fault (CDV), which is part of the Vettore-Bove fault sys...

We provide the first 3‐D resistivity image of the Pian Grande di Castelluccio basin, the main Quaternary depocenter in the hangingwall of the Mt.Vettore–Mt. Bove normal fault system (VBFS), responsible for the October 30, 2016 Mw 6.5 Norcia earthquake (central Italy). The subsurface structure of the basin is poorly known, and its relation with the...

The 29 December 2020, Mw 6.4 Petrinja earthquake nucleated at a depth of~10 km in the Sisak-Moslavina County in northern Croatia,~6 km WSW of the Petrinja town. Focal mechanisms, aftershocks distribution, and preliminary Sentinel-1 InSAR interferogram suggest that the NW-SE right-lateral strike-slip Pokupsko-Petrinja fault was the source of this ev...

This paper provides a new contribution to the construction of the complex and fragmentary mosaic of the Late Holocene earthquakes history of the İznik segment of the central strand of the North Anatolian Fault (CNAF) in Turkey. The CNAF clearly displays lower dextral slip rates with respect to the northern strand however, surface rupturing and larg...

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...

The 2016–2017 Amatrice-Norcia seismic sequence was triggered by the reactivation of a complex NNW-SSE trending, WSW-dipping normal fault system cross-cutting the Umbria-Marche fold and thrust belt near M. Vettore. This fault system produced clear and impressive co-seismic ruptures on normal faults in the hangingwall of the M. Sibillini thrust, wher...

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),...

We integrate paleoseismic data sets along the Mt. Vettore‐Mt. Bove normal fault system rupturing at the surface in the 30 October 2016 Norcia earthquake. Through the analysis of new trenches from this work and a review of the preexisting data, we correlate events among trench sites along antithetic and synthetic fault splays. We recognize seven M 6...

An Mw 6.1, devastating earthquake, on April 6, 2009, struck the Middle Aterno Valley (Abruzzi Apennines, Italy) due to the activation of a poorly known normal fault system. Structural analysis of the fault population and investigation of the relationships with the Quaternary continental deposits through integrated field and laboratory techniques we...

On 26 April 1917, an earthquake Mw 6.0 (known as the Monterchi earthquake) struck the upper Tiber basin, central Italy. This Quaternary basin is situated on the hanging wall of a segmented low-angle normal fault (LANF) named the Alto Tiberina fault (ATF), whose capability to act with stick-slip behavior is debated. We reanalyzed instrumental histor...

In the original version of the Data Descriptor the surname of author Anne Socquet was misspelled. This has now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the Data Descriptor. Some authors were also not appropriately associated with their affiliations in the HTML version, due to formatting errors made by the publisher. This has now been correcte...

Key Points We analyze the surface ruptures of the 30 October 2016 M w 6.5 Norcia normal‐faulting earthquake in central Italy The heterogeneity of surface slip, with peaks up to 2.10 m, is controlled by the coseismic rupture process at depth The scaling properties and the complexity of surface slip reveal processes of fault segmentation and strain l...

We conducted paleoseismic studies along the Montereale fault system (MFS - central Italy). The MFS shows geomorphological evidence of Late Quaternary activity and falls within the highest seismic hazard zone of central Apennines, between the epicentral areas of two recent earthquake sequences: 2009 L’Aquila and 2016-2017 central Italy. We excavated...

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...

We study the October 30th 2016 Norcia earthquake (MW 6.5) to retrieve the rupture history by jointly inverting seismograms and coseismic GPS displacements obtained by dense local networks. The adopted fault geometry consists of a main normal fault striking N155°and dipping 47° belonging to the Mt. Vettore-Mt. Bove fault system (VBFS) and a secondar...

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...

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...

We applied a joint survey approach integrating time domain electromagnetic soundings and single-station ambient vibration surveys in the Middle Aterno Valley (MAV), an intermontane basin in central Italy and the locus of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake. By imaging the buried interface between the infilling deposits and the top of the pre-Quaternary be...

We present a 2-D subsurface image of the Paganica Fault from a high-resolution refraction tomography and detailed geological investigation carried out across part of the north-western segment of the 20 km-long Paganica – San Demetrio fault-system, and which was responsible of the 6 April 2009 Mw 6.1 L’Aquila earthquake (central Italy). We acquired...

Since the beginning of the ongoing Amatrice seismic sequence on August 24, 2016, initiated by a Mw 6.0 normal faulting earthquake, the EMERGEO Working Group (an INGV team devoted to earthquake aftermath geological survey) investigated coseismic effects on the natural environment. Up to now, we surveyed about 750 km2 and collected more than 3200 geo...

In the present study, we improve the probabilistic seismic-hazard assessment (PSHA), taking into account fault rupture-related parameters that sensibly affect the azimuthal variability of the ground motion. The study area is the Marmara region (Turkey), characterized by one of the highest levels of seismic risk in Europe and the Mediterranean regio...

On August 24, 2016 (01:36 GMT) a Mw 6.0 normal faulting earthquake struck central Italy causing nearly 300 casualties and severe damage in several historical towns (Amatrice, Arquata del Tronto, Accumoli, Pescara del Tronto among others). Since the beginning of the seismic sequence on August 24, 2016, the National Seismic Network run by INGV locali...

Three 2-D Deep Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) transects, up to 6.36 km-long, were obtained across the Paganica-San Demetrio Basin, bounded by the 2009 L'Aquila Mw 6.1 normal-faulting earthquake causative fault (central Italy). The investigations allowed defining for the first time the shallow subsurface basin structure. The resistivity ima...

This 2 days-long field trip aims at exploring field evidence of active tectonics, paleoseismology and Quaternary geology in the Fucino and L’Aquila intermountain basins and adjacent areas, within the inner sector of Central Apennines, characterized by extensional tectonics since at least 3 Ma. Each basin is the result of repeated strong earthquakes...

We forecast time-independent and time-dependent earthquake ruptures in the Marmara region of Turkey for the next 30 years using a new fault-segmentation model. We also augment time-dependent Brownian Passage Time (BPT) probability with static Coulomb stress changes (ΔCFF) from interacting faults. We calculate Mw > 6.5 probability from 26 individual...

We report a case study from the Po River plain region (northern Italy), where significant liquefaction-related land and property damage occurred during the 2012 Emilia seismic sequence. We took advantage of a 1 m pixel lidar digital terrain model (DTM) and of the 2012 Emilia coseismic liquefaction data set to (a) perform a detailed geomorphological...

Hig resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) derived from airborne LIDAR acquisitions are the digital representation of elevations in natural environment as well as man-made features located on the surface of the earth. In this work, we present the results of 1m pixel DEM analysis in three Italian seismic active areas. Emilia, Pettino-Monte Reale...

We report a case study from the Po River plain region (northern Italy), where a significant liquefaction-related land and property damage occurred during the 2012 Emilia seismic sequence. We took advantage of a 1 m pixel LiDAR Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and of the 2012 Emilia coseismic liquefaction dataset to: (a) perform a detailed geomorphologic...

Modern seismology has produced a huge variety of methodologies and tools to investigate earthquake source characteristics from waveforms recorded in digital form acquired in a very large dynamic range. The instrumental seismology started, however, at the end of the XIX century and the preserved recordings on the analogical seismograms, as well as b...

The seismotectonics of the Upper Tiber Valley are dominated by the Altotiberina Fault (ATF), an NE-dipping low-angle normal fault system, and its antithetic W-dipping high-angle normal faults. Although the southern part of the ATF was demonstrated to creep, its capability to generate strong or moderate earthquakes is still under debate. On April 26...

We present a combined geological-geophysical study on the lacustrine sequence of the Fucino Plain (central Italy). New acquired data on liquefaction features and the recovery of a seismite in the lacustrine sequence are shown. Our preliminary results suggest the occurrence of three seismic events in the last ca. 45 kyr. Moreover, a first attempt to...

Poster presentation

In this paper we present a morphotectonic study of the Paganica–San Demetrio fault system (PSDFS) responsible for the Mw6.1 April 6, 2009 earthquake (L'Aquila, Central Italy). The discrepancy observed between the length of the seismologic–geodetic modeled fault, the limited size of the primary coseismic surface ruptures and the significant morpholo...

Imaging the three-dimensional architecture of the Middle Aterno basin (2009 L'Aquila earthquake, Central Italy) using ground TDEM and seismic noise surveys: preliminary results Abstract: We present preliminary results from a multidisciplinary geophysical approach applied to the imaging of the three-dimensional architecture of the Middle Aterno basi...

The normal fault-system responsible of the 2009 Mw 6.1 L'Aquila earthquake (Paganica- San Demetrio fault-system) comprises several narrow, fault-parallel valleys of controversial origin. We investigated a key section of the southeastern portion of this fault network along the small Verupola Valley. In order to characterize its nature and possible t...

The surface rupturing 2009 L’Aquila earthquake evidenced the limited knowledge of active faults in the Middle Aterno Valley area. Gaps in detailed mapping of Quaternary deposits and tectonic landforms did not trigger researches on active faults, but after the tragic event. We present a morphotectonic study of geometry and evolution of the activated...

We present a geomorphological analysis of the recent extensional tectonics of a Quaternary continental basin in the Northern Apennines (Italy). The study area is focused on Upper Tiber Valley (UTV), a basin elongated for 70 km in NNW-SSE direction hosting the Tiber River. The area is characterized by a series of features that make it an excellent c...

In case of moderate to strong earthquakes (generally for M > 5.5), coseismic slip along a fault can reach directly the ground surface and produce surface faulting. Although scarcely considered in the Italian legislation, surface faulting hazard can have a relevant societal impact because it exposes to substantial risk urban areas and/or important i...

In May-June 2012, a seismic sequence struck a broad area of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. The sequence included two mainshocks (on 20 th May a ML 5.9 and on 29 th May a ML 5.8). The whole aftershocks area extended in an E-W direction for more than 50 km, and included five ML ≥ 5.0 and more than 1800 ML >1.5 earthquakes. Instrumental...

IAEG XII Congress

In this study, we show the effect of time-independent and time-dependent occurrence models on the seismic hazard estimations. The time-dependency is introduced by 1) the Brownian Passage Time (BPT) probability model that is based on a simple physical model of the earthquake cycle 2) the fusion of the BPT renewal model (BPT+∆CFF) with a physical mod...