Analysis of geological, seismological and gravimetric data for the identifi cation of active faults in Abruzzo area (Central Italy)

The aim of the study is to identify and better constrain the geometry of the seismogenic structures (active, outcropping and buried fault systems) in the Abruzzo area (central Italy), through an integrated analysis of geo-structural, seismic and gravimetric data. The studied area is one of the most active zones from a geodynamic point of view of the Italian Apennines, characterized by the occurrence of intense and widely spread seismic activity. The integrated analysis of structural, seismic and gravimetric data (Gaudiosi et al., 2012) of the areas was carried out through the use of Geographic Information System (GIS). More specifically, the analysis consisted of the following main steps: (a) collection and acquisition of aerial photos, numeric cartography, Digital Terrain Model (DTM) data, geological and geophysical data; (b) generation of the vector cartographic database and alpha-numerical data; c) image processing and features classification; d) cartographic restitution and multi-layers representation. Three thematic data sets have been generated: “faults”, “earthquakes” and “gravimetric” data. The fault dataset was built by merging all Plio- Quaternary structural data extracted from the available structural and geological maps, and many geological studies (Boncio et al., 2004; Galadini et al., 2000, 2003; Falcucci et al., 2011; Moro et al., 2013). The earthquake data set consists of seismic data collected in the available historical and instrumental Catalogues (Gruppo di lavoro CPTI, 2004); CPTI11, Rovida et al., 2011; ISIDE, INGV database). Seismic data have been standardized in the same format and merged in a single data set. As regards the gravimetric data set, we performed a Multiscale Derivative Analysis (MDA) of the gravity field, based on the good resolution properties of the Enhanced Horizontal Derivative (EHD) signal (Fedi et al., 2005). The main results of our integrated analysis show a good correlation among faults, epicentral location of earthquakes and MDA lineaments from gravity data. Furthermore, 2D seismic hypocentral locations were correlated with the information yielded by the application of the DEXP method to gravity data (Fedi and Pilkington, 2012), to estimate strike, dip direction and dip angle of some faults of the areas.