Italy earthquake epicenter sits between those of two earlier quakes
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.0210060
Nature : The number of people killed by Wednesday’s magnitude 6.2 earthquake in Italy has now risen to 247. It is the strongest earthquake to strike Italy since the magnitude 6.3 quake in 2009 near the town of L’Aquila, which killed about 300 people. The epicenters of both quakes lie in Italy’s Apennine mountain range, a seismically active area because of a major fault system that extends the entire length of the range. Seismologists had been expecting a rupture in the area where yesterday’s earthquake occurred because of its location between the epicenters of two earlier quakes, the one in 2009 and another that occurred in 1997. However, unlike in 2009, there were no precursor tremors that might have indicated that the larger quake was coming.
