Unexpected culprit found for L’Aquila earthquake
SEP 15, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023685
Nature News : The earthquake that rocked the ancient city of L’Aquila, Italy, less than six months ago was caused by a fault not thought to be a major seismic hazard.The Gran Sasso region near L’Aquila is criss-crossed with large, looming faults running through the mountainous terrain that their activity has created. But the first published analyses of the quake, which struck on 6 April and killed 307 people, suggest that the culprit was the Paganica fault, an undistinguished fracture in comparatively flat ground."It shows it is dangerous to work on the assumption that the faults associated with the largest topographic features are going to produce the largest events,” says Richard Walters, who studies tectonics at the University of Oxford, UK. Related News Picks L’Aquila and Gran Sasso scientists try to recover from earthquake How the earth moved in the L’Aquila earthquake Gran Sasso laboratory undamaged in L’Aquila earthquake 2009 L’Aquila earthquake
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
