Surface ruptures database related to the 26 December 2018, MW 4.9 Mt. Etna earthquake, southern Italy

Fabio Villani ,T Ricci,D Pantosti,S D’Amico,P Montone,A Messina,C A Brunori,F R Cinti,P M De Martini,Roberto Vallone ,Vincenzo Sapia ,Emanuela De Beni ,Alessandra Smedile ,Massimo Cantarero ,Stefano Branca ,Stefano Pucci ,Rosa Nappi ,Raffaele Azzaro ,Gabriele Tarabusi ,Luigi Cucci ,Rosella Nave ,Riccardo Civico ,Marco Caciagli ,Luca Pizzimenti ,A Venuti

doi:10.1038/s41597-020-0383-0

Fabio Villani , T Ricci + Show 23 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0383-0

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Journal: Scientific Data	Publication Date: Feb 7, 2020
Citations: 17	License type: open-access

Affiliation: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia

Abstract

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 field surveys have been performed in the epicentral area to map the ruptures and to characterize their kinematics. The surface ruptures show a dominant right-oblique sense of displacement with an average slip of about 0.09 m and a maximum value of 0.35 m. We have parsed and organized all observations in a concise database, with 932 homogeneous georeferenced records. The Fiandaca Fault is part of the complex active Timpe faults system affecting the eastern flank of Etna, and its seismic history indicates a prominent surface-faulting potential. Therefore, this database is essential for unravelling the seismotectonics of shallow earthquakes in volcanic areas, and contributes updating empirical scaling regressions that relate magnitude and extent of surface faulting.

Highlights

Direction (short name: Direction): double type variable indicating the direction of dip of a rupture or sliding surface with respect to the North, measured in degrees (no decimal places); 10
The present-day volcanic dynamics exhibits a permanent activity from the summit craters and recurrent flank eruptions, paired with a diffuse volcano-tectonic seismicity consisting of frequent small- events with shallow hypocentral depths (h < 5 km)[3,4]
Most of the seismically active faults are located in the eastern flank of the volcano: the Timpe Faults System consists of a number of up to 9 km-long parallel east-facing step-faults (Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

Direction (short name: Direction): double type variable indicating the direction of dip of a rupture or sliding surface with respect to the North, measured in degrees (no decimal places); 10. Strike (short name: Strike): double type variable indicating the azimuth angle of a rupture direction or sliding surface with respect to the North (British right hand rule), measured in degrees (no decimal places); 11.

Results

Conclusion