NEOTECTONICS AS A PROCEDURE TO UNCOVER ACTIVE SEISMOGENIC FAULTS: THE PRESENT EFFICACY OF THE ITALIAN APPROACH MATURED IN 1970-1980

Abstract

Studies on active and capable faults produce data that presently have a key role in the broad field of earthquake geology, as well as in planning engineering works and land use. In regions with high deformation rates, the approach through paleoseismology could be sufficient to collect data necessary to depict active faults behavior. By contrast, a similar approach may be inappropriate in tectonic domains which are characterized by slower deformation rates, like Italy. In such areas, Neotec-tonics as expressed by Carlo Bosi in 1992 - “integrated set of researches with the aim to define the Plio-Quaternary tectonic evolution defined through a temporal scan of hundreds of thousands of years” - provides valuable insights into studying active tectonics and related faulting. Indeed, through the evolutionary perspective, which goes far beyond a “static” multidisciplinary approach, Neotectonics appears as a necessary procedure to define the active faulting setting of a region, representing the ef-fect of the current tectonic regime. Hence, the structural settings produced by Neotectonics represent the basis for seismotecton-ic settings, as they incorporate those faults that are active seismogenic, which can be capable or not. Overall, this has effects in terms of definition: a fault can be considered active if it exhibits evidence of movements within a time frame consistent with the ongoing tectonic regime of the region, unless it is sealed by deposits and/or landforms not younger than a time span (from the present) whose duration encompasses a significant number of seismic cycles on the respective fault. Neotectonics, defined as a procedure, permits to connect active faults to their “engine”, that is tectonics. This sets the basis for its methodological predictive effectiveness in seismotectonic studies.