A CRITICAL REVISION OF THE SALENTO PENINSULA SEISMICITY: THE CASE OF THE FEBRUARY 20, 1743 EARTHQUAKE AND RELATED ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS.

Abstract

The area of the Salento peninsula (Apulia, Southern Italy) is considered the stable foreland of the Southern Apennines chain (Cinque et al., 1993), although it has been hit by several low energy and a few high energy earthquakes over the last centuries. The aim of this study is a critical revision of the historical and recent seismicity of the Salento peninsula and surrounding seismogenetic areas, for re-evaluating the macroseismic effects in MCS scale and ground effects in natural environment, according to the ESI 2007 scale (Michetti et al., 2007; Guerrieri et al., 2012). In particular, the February 20, 1743 earthquake, the strongest of the area, was reviewed and new MCS intensity values were attributed to some localities. Moreover we have evaluated the most important effects on land in the Salento area due to the strong earthquakes of Northern Apulia, Southern Apennines, Adriatic and Ionian sea, Albania and Greece. The use of both traditional MCS macroseismic intensity scale and the ESI 2007 scale gives a more accurate image of the earthquake (Dengler and McPherson, 1993; Porfido et al., 2007; Serva et al., 2007) and allowed us to better constrain the seismic hazard assessment in the Salento peninsula.