Investigation of pre-1700 Earthquakes Between the Adda and the Middle Adige River Basins (Southern Alps) - Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes - page 88

Investigation of pre-1700 Earthquakes
Between the Adda and the Middle Adige
River Basins (Southern Alps)

M. Stucchi, F. Galadini, A. Rovida, A. Moroni, P. Albini, C. Mirto
and P. Migliavacca

Abstract While the seismicity of the Southern Alps is high in the Eastern sector,
corresponding to the Veneto and Friuli regions, it decreases towards West up to
the Adda River. In the sector between the Lessini Mts. and Eastern Friuli the dam-
aging earthquakes are clustered in a well defined seismic belt, where seismogenic
sources responsible for earthquakes with Mw 6 have been defined in recent works.
In contrast, the knowledge of the Southalpine sector West of this area is sparser;
the area experienced some earthquakes with Mw > 5 . 5 and varied events with

4 . 8 ≤ Mw ≤ 5 . 5 the distribution of which is, apparently, random.

For the area roughly defined by the basins of the Adda River to the West and
the middle Adige River to the East, this paper reappraises the background knowl-
edge of the earthquakes occurred before 1700. The investigation and the results
are presented according to two successive periods, up to 1995 and from 1995
on. In the research performed up to 1995, the most important achievements con-
cerned two different aspects: (i) the assessement of several “fake quakes”, some of
which were the object of paradigmatic case-histories; (ii) the resizing and relocation
of several, presumed damaging earthquakes. Though this round of investigation
changed significantly the picture of the seismicity with respect to the Seventies,
the research continued. For the period from 1995 on, the discussion focuses on
the reliability of the available information; material that received little or no con-
sideration before, new historical findings and comments to the seismological in-
terpretation as in the most recent literature are also presented. This part includes
also the discussion of archaeoseismological evidence of damage related to past
earthquakes.