We provide a database of the coseismic geological surface effects following the Mw 6.5 Norcia earthquake that hit central Italy on 30 October 2016. This was one of the strongest seismic events to occur in Europe in the past thirty years, causing complex surface ruptures over an area of >400 km2. The database originated from the collaboration of several European teams (Open EMERGEO Working Group; about 130 researchers) coordinated by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. The observations were collected by performing detailed field surveys in the epicentral region in order to describe the geometry and kinematics of surface faulting, and subsequently of landslides and other secondary coseismic effects. The resulting database consists of homogeneous georeferenced records identifying 7323 observation points, each of which contains 18 numeric and string fields of relevant information. This database will impact future earthquake studies focused on modelling of the seismic processes in active extensional settings, updating probabilistic estimates of slip distribution, and assessing the hazard of surface faulting.

We have identified an active normal fault in the epicentral area of the Basel (Switzerland) earthquake of 18 October 1356, the largest historical seismic event in central Europe. The event of 1356 and two prehistoric events have been characterized on the fault with geomorphological analysis, geophysical prospecting, and trenching. Carbon-14 dating indicates that the youngest event occurred in the interval 610 to 1475 A.D. and may correspond to the 1356 Basel earthquake. The occurrence of the three earthquakes induced a total of 1.8 meters of vertical displacement in the past 8500 years for a mean uplift rate of 0.21 millimeters per year. These successive ruptures on the normal fault indicate the potential for strong ground movements in the Basel region and should be taken into account to refine the seismic hazard estimates along the Rhine graben.

The Rhône River Valley in France, a densely populated area with many industrial facilities including several nuclear power plants, was shaken on November 11th 2019, by the Mw 4.9 Le Teil earthquake. Here, we report field, seismological and interferometric syntheticaperture radar observations indicating that the earthquake occurred at a very shallow focal depth on a southeast-dipping reverse-fault. We show evidence of surface rupture and up to 15 cm uplift of the hanging wall along a northeast-southwest trending discontinuity with a length of about 5 km. Together, these lines of evidence suggest that the Oligocene La Rouvière fault was reactivated. Based on the absence of geomorphic evidence of cumulative compressional deformation along the fault, we suggest that it had not ruptured for several thousand or even tens of thousands of years. Our observations raise the question of whether displacement from surface rupture represents a hazard in regions with strong tectonic inheritance and very low strain rates.