Marine palaeoseismology from very high resolution seismic imaging: the Gondola Fault Zone (Adriatic foreland).

We present a marine palaeoseismology analysis of a dense network of very high resolution seismic profiles along the Gondola Fault Zone (GFZ), a right-lateral, E–W-striking, active fault system in the Adriatic foreland. This case-study aims to show how time and space variations in the activity of a dominantly right-lateral fault system can be assessed using the vertical component of slip. The GFZ has been investigated for a length of 50 km. It includes two parallel subvertical fault sets and two main anticlines. The late Middle Pleistocene to Holocene vertical component of displacement along the fault is bell-shaped, suggesting that in the long-term the fault zone acts as a single, kinematically coherent structure. Slip rates are 0–0.18 mm a⁻¹ and vary temporally on individual segments. This variability is consistent with a model in which individual fault segments rupture independently during earthquakes with magnitudes up to 6.4 and 1.3–1.8 ka recurrence intervals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]