Present day stress:updated map of Italy

Abstract

We present an updated contemporary stress map of Italy deduced from borehole breakout analysis and earthquake focal mechanisms. In particular, we focus on southern Apennines and Sicily (southern Italy) where a large number of new well log data are available from oil fields on land and offshore. Breakout data from southern Sicily and offshore clearly highlight the compression pattern relative to Africa-Europe plate boundary forces. Whereas, in central Sicily the situation is more complex and influenced by local stress sources. The comparison between our results with seismic crustal profiles will allow us a better comprehension of the deep tectonic setting and to discriminate zones with different characteristics both at surface and at depth.