Modern Approaches for Historical Seismograms: Moment Tensor Inversion of the 1947 Squillace Basin, South Italy, Earthquake

Abstract

Abstract The scientific community has become increasingly aware of the importance of preserving and recovering historical seismic data, also because of their possible use in combination with modern techniques of analysis. Seismograms coming from the analog recording era cover more than 100 yr of seismic activity and may have a great relevance, especially for seismic risk evaluations in regions struck by destructive events in the past centuries but characterized by minor activity in the last decades. In this study we used analog seismograms to investigate an earthquake of presumed magnitude 5.7 that occurred in 1947 in central Calabria, south Italy, a high-seismic risk region framed in a complex geodynamic setting led by northwest-trending Nubia–Eurasia convergence and southeastward Ionian slab rollback. According to seismic catalogs, the 1947 is the only M > 5.5 earthquake instrumentally recorded in an area where the presence of the lateral edge of the Ionian slab has been suggested and an intense debate is still open concerning possible existence, and proper location, of a subduction-transform edge propagator (STEP) fault zone. To study this earthquake, we selected 15 medium- to long-period analog seismograms with related instrumental parameters, and we proceeded with vectorization process and proper waveform corrections. A technique specifically developed for time-domain moment tensor computation through waveform inversion of analog seismograms has been applied to the digitized recordings. The moment tensor solution estimated for the 1947 earthquake indicates strike-slip mechanism, focal depth of 28 km and Mw 5.1. The obtained hypocentral depth and left-lateral kinematics on about west-northwest–east-southeast-oriented fault fit well with the local seismotectonic framework and are compatible with STEP fault activity in central Calabria, furnishing a new seismological constraint to the debate concerning slab edge kinematics. Moreover, the presented analysis is useful for sharing with the scientific community new data and methodological issues related to historical seismogram management.