Evaluation of liquefaction potential in an intermountain Quaternary lacustrine basin (Fucino basin, central Italy)

Boncio, Paolo; Amoroso, Sara; Vessia, Giovanna; Francescone, Marco; Nardone, Mauro; Monaco, Paola Alfonsa Vieira Lo; Famiani, Daniela; Naccio, Deborah Di; Mercuri, Alessia; Manuel, Maria R.; Galadini, Fabrizio; Milana, Giuliano

doi:10.1007/s10518-017-0201-z

Cited by 19 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…9). These observations, combined with other studies in the region (Galli, 2000;Boncio et al, 2018;, demonstrates the widespread occurrence and severity of this phenomenon in a lacustrine environment such as the Fucino basin. In addition to this, the dating of the sedimentary units in the Perrella site helps us to speculate about which earthquake may be responsible for the occurrence of paleoliquefaction.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

A Case Study of Multidisciplinary Surface Faulting Assessment in the Urbanized Fucino Basin, Italy

Iezzi¹,

Boncio²,

Testa³

et al. 2023

IJG

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The occurrence of coseismic surface ruptures along fault traces in urbanised areas creates a serious hazard to the vulnerability of man-made manufactures. In order to mitigate such hazard, it is necessary to investigate the geometry, the activity and the capability of faults located close to urbanised areas. This paper presents a case study of the investigation of capable faults within a sensitive area in Italy that is characterized by a high density of population and industrial activities, high levels of seismicity and the presence of faults proven to be capable of rupturing the surface during medium-to-large earthquakes. We focused on the Luco fault (Fucino basin, Central Italy), which previous studies have suggested to cross the industrial district of the town of Avezzano. We present a multidisciplinary approach, consisting of Electrical Resistivity Tomography surveys, continuous-coring boreholes and paleoseismological trenches, aimed at accurately constraining the trace of the Luco fault and documenting the associated fault displacement. This allowed us to constrain the geometry of the Luco fault and to assess the associated fault displacement hazard. We suggest that the proposed methodology represents a pilot study for further investigations of capable faults in the Italian and other similar seismotectonic contexts.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

A Case Study of Multidisciplinary Surface Faulting Assessment in the Urbanized Fucino Basin, Italy

Iezzi¹,

Boncio²,

Testa³

et al. 2023

IJG

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“…Several papers (Kishida 1970;Tokimatsu and Yoshimi 1983;Figueroa et al 1995) report that mainly clean sand with a low natural clay content are susceptible to liquefaction, and report a cut-off for liquefaction susceptibility at a clay content of about 10-15%. The liquefaction susceptibility of fine-grained sediments has been debated over the last 20 years (e.g., Andrew and Martin 2000;Idriss and Boulanger 2008;Bray et al 2014;Boncio et al 2018): fine-grained sediments were considered incapable of generating the high pore pressures commonly associated with liquefaction (Kramer 1996). Only a few papers (Ishihara 1984;Chang et al 2011) observed liquefaction of non-plastic silts, indicating that plasticity characteristics rather than grain size alone influence the liquefaction susceptibility of fine-grained soils.…”

Section: Grain-size Characteristics and Liquefaction Susceptibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sand Liquefaction Induced By a Blast Test: New Insights On Source Layer and Grain-Size Segregation Mechanisms (Late Quaternary, Emilia, Italy)

Fontana

Amoroso

Minarelli

et al. 2019

Journal of Sedimentary Research

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The composition and texture of liquefied sands represent an important tool for the recognition of buried source layers and for a better understanding of earthquake-induced liquefaction mechanisms. The earthquakesimulating field experiment (blast test) carried out in 2016 in fluvial sediments of the Emilia plain induced subsurface liquefaction and the surface expulsion of sand as sand blows. The area was widely affected by liquefaction phenomena during the Mw 6.1 Emilia earthquake (2012). The grain size and composition of sand blows ejected during the blast test have been compared with various horizons of buried fluvial sediments as deep as 20 m, and with sands from two trenches in the blast site representative of co-seismic 2012 liquefied sands. The sands from the cores show a clear trend from shallow lithoarenitic to deeper quartz-feldspar-rich compositions. The sands at shallow depth (up to 7.7 m) are the most lithoarenitic, with fine-grained sedimentary rock fragments (shales, siltstones, and limestone) as the dominant lithic type. Lithic fragments derive mostly from erosion of sedimentary terrigenous and carbonate successions of Apenninic affinity. In contrast, deeper sands (at depth . 7.7 m) are enriched in quartz and feldspars and impoverished in lithic fragments, which are similar in character to Po River sands. The composition of ejected sands largely overlap that of the shallow litharenitic Apenninic sands, indicating that liquefaction processes affected mainly sand layers at relatively shallow depth (5.9-7.7 m). Textural parameters show that silty sands and silts characterized by relatively high content of fines can also liquefy. This is in contrasts to most of the literature, where fine-grained sediments are considered as incapable of generating the high pore pressures commonly associated with liquefaction. This result should be considered when estimating the liquefaction as a potential hazard. Moreover, we observe that there is a selective loss of fines in the clastic dikes and sand volcanoes relative to the source beds, indicating that the liquefaction process appears to preferentially select the diameters of the grains that reach the ground surface, probably following the generated excess pore-water pressure. This may have caused the segregation and dispersion of the fine silt-clay content, producing highly sorted sand boils. This effect is easlit observable in both the blast-induced sand boils, and the co-seismic 2012 dikes and sand boils ejected in the same area.

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“…Many of the urban settlements in Central Italy are placed nearby active faults and, consequently, the ground motion evaluation and seismic site effects on the environment (among which surface fault rupture, landslide, liquefaction, ground rupture, sinkhole formation, etc.) under near-fault earthquakes are noteworthy issues to be investigated [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seismic Soil Characterization to Estimate Site Effects Induced by Near-Fault Earthquakes: The Case Study of Pizzoli (Central Italy) during the Mw 6.7 2 February 1703, Earthquake

et al. 2021

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Many of the urban settlements in Central Italy are placed nearby active faults and, consequently, the ground motion evaluation and seismic site effects under near-fault earthquakes are noteworthy issues to be investigated. This paper presents the results of site investigations, the seismic site characterization, and the local seismic response for assessing the effects induced by the Mw 6.7 2 February 1703, near-fault earthquake at the Madonna delle Fornaci site (Pizzoli, Central Italy) in which notable ground failure phenomena were observed, as witnessed by several coeval sources. Even though recent papers described these phenomena, the geological characteristics of the site and the failure mechanism have never been assessed through in-situ investigations and numerical modeling. Within a project concerning the assessment of soil liquefaction potential and co-seismic ground failure, deep and shallow continuous core drilling, geophysical investigations and in-hole tests have been carried out. Subsequently, the geotechnical model has been defined and the numerical quantification of the different hypotheses of failure mechanisms has been evaluated. Analyses showed that liquefaction did not occur, and the excess pore water pressure induced by the shaking was not the source of the ground failure. Therefore, it was hypothesized that the sinkhole was likely caused by earthquake-induced gas eruption.

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Evaluation of liquefaction potential in an intermountain Quaternary lacustrine basin (Fucino basin, central Italy)

Cited by 19 publications

References 31 publications

A Case Study of Multidisciplinary Surface Faulting Assessment in the Urbanized Fucino Basin, Italy

A Case Study of Multidisciplinary Surface Faulting Assessment in the Urbanized Fucino Basin, Italy

Sand Liquefaction Induced By a Blast Test: New Insights On Source Layer and Grain-Size Segregation Mechanisms (Late Quaternary, Emilia, Italy)

Seismic Soil Characterization to Estimate Site Effects Induced by Near-Fault Earthquakes: The Case Study of Pizzoli (Central Italy) during the Mw 6.7 2 February 1703, Earthquake

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