Localized Afterslip at Geometrical Complexities Revealed by InSAR After the 2016 Central Italy Seismic Sequence

Abstract

The Mw 6.5 Norcia earthquake occurred on 30 October 2016, along the Mt Vettore fault (Central Apennines, Italy), it was the largest earthquake of the 2016–2017 seismic sequence that started 2 months earlier with the Mw 6.0 Amatrice earthquake (24 August). To detect potential slow slip during the sequence, we produced Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) time series using 12‐ to 6‐day repeat cycles of Sentinel‐1A/1B images. Time series indicates that centimeter‐scale surface displacements took place during the 10 weeks following the Norcia earthquake. Two areas of subsidence are detected: one in the Castelluccio basin (hanging wall of the Mt Vettore fault) and one in the southern extent of the Norcia earthquake surface rupture, near an inherited thrust. Poroelastic and viscoelastic models are unable to explain these displacements. In the Castelluccio basin, the displacement reaches 13.2 ± 1.4 mm in the ascending line of sight on 6 January 2017. South of the Norcia earthquake surface rupture (a zone between the Norcia and Amatrice earthquakes), the postseismic surface displacements affect a smaller area but reach 35.5 ± 1.7 mm in ascending line of sight by January 2017 and follow a logarithmic temporal decay consistent with postseismic afterslip. Our analysis suggests that the structurally complex area located south of the Norcia rupture (30 October) is characterized by a conditionally stable frictional regime. This geometrical and frictional barrier likely halted rupture propagation during the Amatrice (24 August) and Norcia (30 October) earthquakes at shallow depth (<3–4 km).