Soil liquefaction has been observed worldwide during recent major earthquakes with induced effects responsible for much of the damage, disruption of function, and considerable replacement expenses for structures. The phenomenon has not been documented in recent time with such damage in Italian context before the recent Emilia-Romagna Earthquake (May 2012). The main lateral spreading and vertica...

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar observations of surface deformation due to the 1999 Hector Mine earthquake reveal motion on several nearby faults of the eastern California shear zone. We document both vertical and horizontal displacements of several millimeters to several centimeters across kilometer-wide zones centered on pre-existing faults. Portions of some faults experienced retrog...

Most of the existing concrete dams are subjected to cracking. These cracks are caused by various factors such as construction practices, curing, loads and volume change of mass concrete which reduce the efficiency, failure or instability of concrete dams. Using fracture mechanics as a new method to estimate stability and durability of concrete dams is recommended in scientific publications in w...

The fragility of buried electrical cables is often neglected in earthquakes but significant damage to cables was observed during the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence in New Zealand. This study estimates Poisson repair rates, similar to those in existence for pipelines, using damage data retrieved from part of the electric power distribution network in the city of Christchurch. The funct...

Widespread seismicity was triggered by the June 28, 1992, Landers California, earthquake at a rate which was maximum immediately after passage of the exciting seismic waves. Rectified diffusion of vapor from hydrothermal liquids and magma into bubbles oscillating in an earthquake can increase the local pore pressure to seismically significant levels within the duration of the earthquake. In a h...

Abstract Recent improvement in analysis methods, computational resources, and seismological and geological observations enable us to image earthquake source in detail. This paper reviews various studies for each component of source imaging: model parameterization, data, theoretical wave calculation, and optimization. Differences in analysis in each of these aspects can lead to significant diffe...

The recent Mw 6.3 destructive L’Aquila earthquake has further stimulated the improvement of the Italian operational earthquake forecasting capability at different time intervals. Here, we describe a medium-term (10-year) forecast model for Mw ≥5:5 earthquakes in Italy that aims at opening new possibilities for risk mitigation purposes. While a longer forecast yielded by the national seismic-haz...