Application of the Bakun Wentworth's Method for the Macroseismic Estimation of Parameters of Italian Earthquakes

Abstract

The methodology proposed by Bakun and Wentworth (1997, Estimating earthquake location and magnitude from seismic intensity data, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 87, 1502-1521; hereinafter B&W) and calibrated with Italian data by Gomez Capera AA, D’Amico V, Meletti C (2008, Calibrating the Bakun-Wentworth’s method for the macroseismic estimation of earthquake parameters in Italy, this conference) was applied to the recently released macroseismic database of Italian earthquakes (DBMI07; http://emidius.mi.ingv.it/DBMI07). The database contains about 83000 intensity data points for 1430 earthquakes. In the time-interval 1900-2006, for the greater part of the earthquakes the instrumental determination (epicentral coordinates and magnitude) is available. Thus, the Bakun and Wentworth method (B&W) was applied to a large set of Italian earthquakes and the results compared with those obtained adopting the Boxer approach (Gasperini, P., Bernardini, F., Valensise, G., Boschi, E.,1999, Defining seismogenic sources from historical earthquake felt reports, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 89, 94-110); epicentral determinations by both methods were then compared with the instrumental parameters.