Tsunamis in the Aeolian Islands (Southern Italy): a review

Abstract

The Aeolian Islands, located in the south Tyrrhenian Sea to the west of Calabria and to the north of Sicily, constitute the Aeolian Volcanic Arc, characterized by a relevant volcanic activity with an established tsunamigenic potential. According to the documentary sources that are available for the Aeolian tsunamis, and that cover unfortunately only about the last 100 years, Stromboli is responsible for the majority of the events. Some cases are also known to have occurred at the islands of Salina and Vulcano. In terms of intensities, the most destructive events are those originated by the Stromboli volcano, reported to have produced severe destruction to boats and houses, and to have even caused injuries and fatalities. In this work, we focus on the historical events, and discard the paleotsunami occurrences that were probably associated with the ascertained flank collapses of the volcanic cones. We also neglect the recent destructive tsunamis of 30 December 2002, which were caused by a series of mass failures at the Sciara del Fuoco, since observations and analyses are of such an amount that deserve to be illustrated in devoted papers. The bulk of the present research consisted in collecting all the available data on the historical cases (the first in order of time is the July 1916 Stromboli tsunami) with the purpose of casting more light on their generation mechanism and on their effects, and consequently of contributing to the studies on assessment of tsunami hazard and risk in the Aeolian Islands and in the southern Tyrrhenian sea.