Seven years after the L’Aquila earthquake another destructive seismic sequence hit Central Italy with a series of moderate to large earthquakes that occurred within three months by activating a nearby 60 km long segmented normal fault system.
The sequence started on August 24 at 01:36 UTC with a magnitude ML=6.0 located between the towns of Norcia and Amatrice, causing a heavy death toll despite its moderate magnitude. This first shock ruptured at shallow depth a 20-25 km long segment, on a WSW dipping and NNW-SSE striking normal fault.
Two months later, another event with ML5.9 occurred (26th of October, 19:18 UTC) at the northernmost sector of the activated area nearby the village Visso, rupturing again with a normal-faulting mechanism. Only four days later, the largest shock (MW6.5, 30th of October at 06:40 UTC) occurred in the center of the activated fault system, causing large surface offsets that occasionally overlapped and exceeded those of the first M6 shock.
The seismic sequence (more than 35’000 events) were recorded by several dense local, regional and teleseismic networks, as well as by temporary seismic arrays installed by Italian and European institutions soon after the first event. The deformation was also well recorded by geodetic networks and DInSAR. Geological field surveys have been carried out in the aftermath of the main events in order to map coseismic surface breakages.
All these high quality data have been promptly made available to the scientific community in the form of data-bases and technical reports, so that the overall image of the earthquakes processes and the complex interaction between activated normal faults have been unveiled only a few days after the events occurrence.
Eight months after the beginning of the seismic sequence, this session provides an excellent opportunity to make an overview of the multi-disciplinary data analyses and interpretation models of the main ruptures processes and of the whole sequence. We solicit geological, seismological, geodetic contributions that can provide a better understanding and characterization of the earthquake process, including the mechanisms at the heart of the very strong ground shaking and the consequent extensive damage and building collapses.