Abstract
A historical catalogue of felt earthquakes in the Maltese islands has been compiled dating back to 1530. Although no fatalities were officially recorded during this time as a direct consequence of earthquake effects, serious damage to buildings occurred several times. In the catalogue time period, the islands experienced EMS-98 intensity VII-VIII once (11 January 1693) and intensity VII, or VI-VII five times. The northern segment of the Hyblean-Malta plateau is the source region which appears to pose the greatest threat, although large Greek events and lower magnitude Sicily Channel events also produced damage. Estimates of return periods for intensity ?V are presented, and it is shown that expected peak ground accelerations justify the implementation of, at least, minimum anti-seismic provisions. The rapid and continual increase in the local building stock on the densely-populated islands warrants the implementation of an appropriate seismic building code to be enforced.
Highlights
The Maltese archipelago consists of three main islands – Malta, Gozo and Comino, with a total land area of 316 km2
The Maltese islands lie in the Sicily Channel on a relatively stable plateau of the African foreland, the Pelagian Platform, about 200 km south of the convergent segment of the Europe-Africa plate boundary that runs through Sicily
The grabens are governed by a fault system that extends throughout the Sicily Channel from Southern Sicily to Tunisia and which has been responsible for the major tectonic and geomorphological development of the Maltese islands (Illies, 1981)
Summary
The Maltese islands lie in the Sicily Channel on a relatively stable plateau of the African foreland, the Pelagian Platform, about 200 km south of the convergent segment of the Europe-Africa plate boundary that runs through Sicily. Knowledge of the seismicity on the Sicily Channel Rift zone has always suffered from poor epicentral location accuracy, especially in the case of earthquakes occurring to the south of the Maltese islands This is due to inadequate network coverage, especially before the 1980s, as well as the generally small magnitude of the events. On the 24th November 2006, a welllocated magnitude 4.6 event occurred on a more southerly segment of the Malta escarpment (36.23N, 15.80E), (Bollettino Sismico Italiano, INGV) at a distance of 120 km from Valletta, and was widely felt on the Maltese islands This event had a left-lateral strike slip mechanism along a N-S trending fault (TDMT Catalogue, INGV)
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