Earthquake-induced liquefaction features in a late Quaternary fine-grained lacustrine succession (Fucino Lake, Italy): Implications for microzonation studies

Abstract

The Fucino lacustrine basin in central Italy is a large flat area mostly devoted to agriculture, with urbanization along the perimeter of the ancient lake. In 1915 a strong earthquake struck the area (Mw 7.0), producing large damages and geological effects, including surface faulting, ground failures and liquefaction. A channel excavated in the lacustrine sediments exposed ground failure, with dykes of fine-grained sediment that we interpret as the result of earthquake-induced liquefaction. We present the results of a multidisciplinary work aimed at characterizing in detail the geology of the buried stratigraphic succession, its susceptibility to liquefaction and the likely source of the fine-grained liquefied material. The succession down to 20 m deep is formed by fine-grained sediments younger than ~170–180 kyrs (mostly Late Pleistocene - Holocene), prevailingly silt or silt-clay mixtures. The geological field analysis indicates that the dykes are filled by prevailing silt, liquefied and transported by upward-directed flow of short duration, as for earthquake-induced liquefaction. Tilting and lateral spreading accompanied the process. The overall liquefaction potential derived from the “simplified methods” is high. Correlations of X-Ray Powder Diffraction mineralogy of samples from drilling cores with those from dykes allowed us to identify the most likely source layer filling dykes, corresponding to a silt layer at 7–8 m depths. This layer and the dykes lack illite and montmorillonite clay particles. These results contribute to improve studies of liquefactions in sediments that differ from typical liquefiable loose sands. They have also implications for microzonation studies. Most samples show grain-size curves that do not fit within the field of potentially liquefiable soils, suggesting that criteria based on grain-size can be poorly significant in seismic microzonation studies of recent (Late Pleistocene-Holocene) lacustrine, fine-grained successions.