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Quaternary Stress Field and Faulting in the Western Part of the Catanzaro Trough (Calabria, Southern Italy)

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Moment Tensor Solutions

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Abstract

The Calabria Arc presents the highest probability of occurrence of major earthquakes in the Italian peninsula. Several destructive historical earthquakes (i.e. 1638, 1659, 1783, 1905 and 1908) affected, in particular, the Catanzaro Trough and its neighbouring areas. These events have been tentatively related to the activity of NE-SW trending normal faults. Some of these earthquakes have been followed by tsunamis, which caused further damages along the Tyrrhenian coast. In this paper, we reconstruct the Quaternary evolution of the Catanzaro Trough by combining field geo-structural and marine geophysical data. The results have been compared with existing database of earthquake focal mechanisms, updated with 8 new focal solutions performed in the present work. Analysis of faults offsetting the Lower-Middle Pleistocene deposits shows that the Catanzaro Trough experienced transcurrent and extensional phases of deformation. In particular, conjugate systems with NW-SE right-lateral and NE-SW left lateral faults were observed to displace the Lower Pleistocene deposits. Whereas NE–SW and N-S oriented normal faults have been identified as the main fault systems acting during late Pleistocene-Holocene phase. The interpretation of on-land structural datasets has been supported by geophysical data (multichannel and Chirp profiles) acquired in the offshore and onshore of the study area. Multidisciplinary approach has allowed to define NE-SW elongated sedimentary basins, as the Lamezia Basin, bordered on the one hand by Sant’Eufemia Fault that may extend up to 30 km-length, on the other hand by two overstepping faults, Vibo Valentia and San Pietro Lametino Faults. These findings carry some relevant implications in terms of seismic hazard, as they suggest that the longer fault segment, the greater its energetic seismic event. Finally, these data fit perfectly with the observed late Pleistocene-Holocene WNW-ESE extensional stress regime derived from existing and new database of earthquake focal mechanisms. This is in agreement with the orientation of the most seismically active grabens of the Calabrian Arc (the Crati, the Mesima and the Gioia Tauro Basins). Amongst these structural lineaments, the NE-SW and N-S trending normal faults play surely a relevant role as part of recent seismotectonics processes controlling the Late Quaternary geodynamics of the central Calabrian Arc, representing the source of the main destructive earthquakes occurred in the region.

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Acknowledgements

This work is part of Ph.D. work Thesis (Brutto 2016). We are grateful to the OGS (Trieste) for user licence of geophysical dataset coming from the ISTEGE project. We wish to thank CNR-ISMAR of Bologna for permission to consult seismic reflection profiles carried out in the S. Eufemia Plain and to publish its line drawings.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Biology, Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Calabria, 87036, Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy

    F. Brutto, F. Muto, V. Tripodi & S. Critelli

  2. Institute of Marine Sciences – National Research Council, U.O.S. Bologna, Via Gobetti 101, 40129, Bologna, Italy

    M. F. Loreto

  3. Department of Geosciences, University of Malta, Msida Campus, Msida, MSD, 2080, Malta

    Sebastiano D’Amico

  4. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK

    N. De Paola

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    Sebastiano D'Amico

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Brutto, F. et al. (2018). Quaternary Stress Field and Faulting in the Western Part of the Catanzaro Trough (Calabria, Southern Italy). In: D'Amico, S. (eds) Moment Tensor Solutions. Springer Natural Hazards. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77359-9_28

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