Environmental effects from five historical earthquakes in southern Apennines (Italy) and macroseismic intensity assessment: Contribution to INQUA EEE Scale Project

Abstract

This paper aims at substantiating the basic postulate of the recent Earthquake Environmental Effects (EEE) scale proposed by the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA), that primary and secondary environmental effects of earthquakes provide invaluable information on the earthquake size and intensity field, complementing but also independently testing the results of the traditional damage-based macroseismic scales. The EEE scale is applied to five disastrous earthquakes, which occurred in Southern Italy since the end of the XVII century. For each considered earthquake, the available macroseismic data have been reviewed and integrated through an updated interpretation of the original texts. The cataloguing and analysis of the seismically induced environmental effects has provided (a) a more detailed picture of the macroseismic fields, (b) the chance to test the scaling of the EEE scale with the MCS and MSK macroseismic scales, confirming its good fit with the MSK/MM, (c) I 0 estimates based on EEE scale in good agreement with I 0 assessments derived from MCS/MSK scales, (d) further constrains for the new version of the EEE scale, (e) useful data for seismic zonation. These results have confirmed once more the essential role of EEEs in the process of seismic hazard assessment and risk reduction.