New observations in Central Italy of groundwater responses to the worldwide seismicity

Abstract

Chemical and physical responses of groundwater to seismicity have been documented for thousands of years. Among the waves produced by earthquakes, Rayleigh waves can spread to great distances and produce hydrogeological perturbations in response to their passage. In this work, the groundwater level, which was continuously recorded in a monitoring well in Central Italy between July 2014 and December 2019, exhibited evident responses to dynamic crustal stress. In detail, 18 sharp variations of the groundwater level due to worldwide Mw ≥ 6.5 earthquakes were observed. Apart from earthquakes that occurred in Papua New Guinea and those with a hypocentral depth > 150 km, all far away Mw ≥ 7.6 earthquakes produced impulsive oscillations of groundwater. As the earthquake magnitude decreased, only some earthquakes with 6.5 ≤ Mw < 7.6 caused groundwater level perturbations, depending on the data acquisition frequency and epicentral distance from the monitoring well. A clear correlation between earthquake distance and magnitude in hydrogeological responses was found. Our results shed light on the hydrosensitivity of the study site and on the characteristics of fractured aquifer systems. Detecting the water table variations induced by distant earthquakes is another step towards a correct identification of (preseismic) hydrogeological changes due to near-field seismicity.