Investigating the spatial variability of the time-scaling properties in Italian seismicity

Significant power-law long-range correlated structures have been identified in the Italian seismicity from 1983 to 2003. We performed the Allan Factor Analysis and the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis on both the full and the aftershock-depleted seismic data, extracted by the INGV (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology) instrumental catalog. Our findings suggest that (i) the time-scaling behaviour characterizes mainly the Apennine chain; (ii) the timecorrelated behaviour of the seismicity is persistent, and this implies that the dynamics underlying the seismic phenomenology is characterized by the presence of “positive feedback mechanisms”; (iii) significant time correlation is not simply related with the mainshock/aftershock mechanisms.