Main, I. G.

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The 2016–17 central Italy earthquake sequence began with the first mainshock near the town of Amatrice on August 24 (MW 6.0), and was followed by two subsequent large events near Visso on October 26 (MW 5.9) and Norcia on October 30 (MW 6.5), plus a cluster of 4 events with MW > 5.0 within few hours on January 18, 2017. The affected area had been monitored before the sequence started by the permanent Italian National Seismic Network (RSNC), and was enhanced during the sequence by temporary stations deployed by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology and the British Geological Survey. By the middle of September, there was a dense network of 155 stations, with a mean separation in the epicentral area of 6–10 km, comparable to the most likely earthquake depth range in the region. This network configuration was kept stable for an entire year, producing 2.5 TB of continuous waveform recordings. Here we describe how this data was used to develop a large and comprehensive earthquake catalogue using the Complete Automatic Seismic Processor (CASP) procedure. This procedure detected more than 450,000 events in the year following the first mainshock, and determined their phase arrival times through an advanced picker engine (RSNI-Picker2), producing a set of about 7 million P- and 10 million S-wave arrival times. These were then used to locate the events using a non-linear location (NLL) algorithm, a 1D velocity model calibrated for the area, and station corrections and then to compute their local magnitudes (ML). The procedure was validated by comparison of the derived data for phase picks and earthquake parameters with a handpicked reference catalogue (hereinafter referred to as ‘RefCat’). The automated procedure takes less than 12 hours on an Intel Core-i7 workstation to analyse the primary waveform data and to detect and locate 3000 events on the most seismically active day of the sequence. This proves the concept that the CASP algorithm can provide effectively real-time data for input into daily operational earthquake forecasts, The results show that there have been significant improvements compared to RefCat obtained in the same period using manual phase picks. The number of detected and located events is higher (from 84,401 to 450,000), the magnitude of completeness is lower (from ML 1.4 to 0.6), and also the number of phase picks is greater with an average number of 72 picked arrival for a ML = 1.4 compared with 30 phases for RefCat using manual phase picking. These propagate into formal uncertainties of ± 0.9km in epicentral location and ± 1.5km in depth for the enhanced catalogue for the vast majority of the events. Together, these provide a significant improvement in the resolution of fine structures such as local planar structures and clusters, in particular the identification of shallow events occurring in parts of the crust previously thought to be inactive. The lower completeness magnitude provides a rich data set for development and testing of analysis techniques of seismic sequences evolution, including real-time, operational monitoring of b-value, time-dependent hazard evaluation and aftershock forecasting.

Following the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, the Dipartimento della Protezione Civile Italiana (DPC), appointed an International Commission on Earthquake Forecasting for Civil Protection (ICEF) to report on the current state of knowledge of short-term prediction and forecasting of tectonic earthquakes and indicate guidelines for utilization of possible forerunners of large earthquakes to drive civil protection actions, including the use of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis in the wake of a large earthquake. The ICEF reviewed research on earthquake prediction and forecasting, drawing from developments in seismically active regions worldwide. A prediction is defined as a deterministic statement that a future earthquake will or will not occur in a particular geographic region, time window, and magnitude range, whereas a forecast gives a probability (greater than zero but less than one) that such an event will occur. Earthquake predictability, the degree to which the future occurrence of earthquakes can be determined from the observable behavior of earthquake systems, is poorly understood. This lack of understanding is reflected in the inability to reliably predict large earthquakes in seismically active regions on short time scales. Most proposed prediction methods rely on the concept of a diagnostic precursor; i.e., some kind of signal observable before earthquakes that indicates with high probability the location, time, and magnitude of an impending event. Precursor methods reviewed here include changes in strain rates, seismic wave speeds, and electrical conductivity; variations of radon concentrations in groundwater, soil, and air; fluctuations in groundwater levels; electromagnetic variations near and above Earth's surface; thermal anomalies; anomalous animal behavior; and seismicity patterns. The search for diagnostic precursors has not yet produced a successful short-term prediction scheme. Therefore, this report focuses on operational earthquake forecasting as the principle means for gathering and disseminating authoritative information about time-dependent seismic hazards to help communities prepare for potentially destructive earthquakes. On short time scales of days and weeks, earthquake sequences show clustering in space and time, as indicated by the aftershocks triggered by large events. Statistical descriptions of clustering explain many features observed in seismicity catalogs, and they can be used to construct forecasts that indicate how earthquake probabilities change over the short term. Properly applied, short-term forecasts have operational utility; for example, in anticipating aftershocks that follow large earthquakes. Although the value of long-term forecasts for ensuring seismic safety is clear, the interpretation of short-term forecasts is problematic, because earthquake probabilities may vary over orders of magnitude but typically remain low in an absolute sense (< 1% per day). Translating such low-probability forecasts into effective decision-making is a difficult challenge. Reports on the current utilization operational forecasting in earthquake risk management were compiled for six countries with high seismic risk: China, Greece, Italy, Japan, Russia, United States. Long-term models are currently the most important forecasting tools for civil protection against earthquake damage, because they guide earthquake safety provisions of building codes, performance-based seismic design, and other risk-reducing engineering practices, such as retrofitting to correct design flaws in older buildings. Short-term forecasting of aftershocks is practiced by several countries among those surveyed, but operational earthquake forecasting has not been fully implemented (i.e., regularly updated and on a national scale) in any of them. Based on the experience accumulated in seismically active regions, the ICEF has provided to DPC a set of recommendations on the utilization of operational forecasting in Italy, which may also be useful in other countries. The public should be provided with open sources of information about the short-term probabilities of future earthquakes that are authoritative, scientific, consistent, and timely. Advisories should be based on operationally qualified, regularly updated seismicity forecasting systems that have been rigorously reviewed and updated by experts in the creation, delivery, and utility of earthquake information. The quality of all operational models should be evaluated for reliability and skill by retrospective testing, and they should be under continuous prospective testing against established long-term forecasts and alternative time-dependent models. Alert procedures should be standardized to facilitate decisions at different levels of government and among the public. Earthquake probability thresholds should be established to guide alert levels based on objective analysis of costs and benefits, as well as the less tangible aspects of value-of-information, such as gains in psychological preparedness and resilience. The principles of effective public communication established by social science research should be applied to the delivery of seismic hazard information.

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Time-dependent brittle deformation is a fundamental and pervasive process operating in the Earth's upper crust. Its characterization is a pre-requisite to understanding and unraveling the complexities of crustal evolution and dynamics. The preferential chemical interaction between pore fluids and strained atomic bonds at crack tips, a mechanism known as stress corrosion, allows rock to fail under a constant stress that is well below its short-term strength over an extended period of time; a process known as brittle creep. Here we present the first experimental measurements of brittle creep in a basic igneous rock (a basalt from Mt. Etna volcano) under triaxial stress conditions. Results from conventional creep experiments show that creep strain rates are highly dependent on the level of applied stress (and can be equally well fit by a power law or an exponential law); with a 20% increase in stress producing close to three orders of magnitude increase in creep strain rate. Results from stress-stepping creep experiments show that creep strain rates are also influenced by the imposed effective confining pressure. We show that only part of this change can be attributed to the purely mechanical influence of an increase in effective pressure, with the remainder interpreted as due to a reduction in stress corrosion reactions; the result of a reduction in crack aperture that restricts the rate of transport of reactive species to crack tips. Overall, our results also suggest that a critical level of crack damage is required before the deformation starts to accelerate to failure, regardless of the level of applied stress and the time taken to reach this point. The experimental results are discussed in terms of microstructural observations and fits to a macroscopic creep law, and compared with the observed deformation history at Mt. Etna volcano.

Fluids exert a strong physical and chemical control on local processes of rock fracture and friction. For example they may accelerate fracture by stress corrosion reactions or the development of overpressure (a form of positive feedback), or retard fracture by time-dependent stress relaxation or dilatant hardening (negative feed-back), thereby introducing a variable degree of local force conservation into the process. In particular the valve action of dynamic faulting may be important in tuning the Earth to a metastable state of incipient failure on all scales over several cycles, similar to current models of Self-Organised Criticality (SOC) as a paradigm for eartiquakes However laboratory results suggest that ordered fluctuations about this state may occur in a single cycle due to non conservative processes involving fluids which have the potential to be recognised, at least in the short term, in the scaling properties of earthquake statistics. Here we describe a 2-D cellular automaton which uses local rules of positive and negative feedback to model the effect of fluids on failure in a heterogeneous medium in a single earthquake cycle. The model successfully predicts the observed fractal distribution of fractures, with a negative correlation between the predicted seismic b-value and the local crack extension force G. Such a negative correlation is found in laboratory tests involving (a) fluid-assisted crack growth in tension (b) water-saturated compressional deformation, and (c) in field results on an intermediate scale from hydraulic mining-induced seismicity all cases where G can be determined independently, and where the physical and chemical action of pore fluids is to varying degrees a controlled variable. For a finite local hardening mechanism (negative feedback), the model exhibits a systematic increase followed by a decrease in the seismic b-value as macroscopic failure is approached, similar to that found in water-saturated laboratory tests under controlled «undrained» conditions, and where dilatancy hardening is independently known to be a local mechanism of negative feedback. A similar pattern is suggested from selected field observations from natural seismicity, albeit with a lesser degree of statistical significance.