Late Quaternary activity along the Scorciabuoi Fault (Southern Italy) as inferred from electrical resistivity tomographies

Abstract

The Scorciabuoi Fault is one of the major tectonic structures affecting the Southern Apennines, Italy. Across its central sector, we performed several electrical resistivity tomographies with different electrode spacing (5 and 10 m) and using a multielectrode system with 32 electrodes. All tomographies were acquired with two different arrays, the dipole-dipole and the Wenner-Schlumberger. We also tested the different sensitivity of the two arrays with respect to the specific geological conditions and research goals. Detailed geological mapping and two boreholes were used to calibrate the electrical stratigraphy. In all but one tomography (purposely performed off the fault trace), we could recognise an abrupt subvertical lateral variation of the main sedimentary bodies showing the displacement and sharp thickening of the two youngest alluvial bodies in the hanging-wall block. These features are interpreted as evidence of synsedimentary activity of the Scorciabuoi Fault during Late Pleistocene and possibly as recently as Holocene and allow accurate location of the fault trace within the Sauro alluvial plain.

The geometry of the active strike-slip El Tigre Fault, Precordillera of San Juan, Central–Western Argentina: integrating resistivity surveys with structural and geomorphological data

“…The application of the 2D ERT method for modelling geological bodies and characterizing Quaternary faults has led to encouraging results as already published in the last decade (e.g. Fleta et al 2000;Giano et al 2000;Storz et al 2000;Suzuki et al 2000;Verbeeck et al 2000;Demanet et al 2001a, b;Caputo et al 2003Caputo et al , 2007Wise et al 2003;Colella et al 2004;Rizzo et al 2004;Nguyen et al 2005Nguyen et al , 2007Fazzito et al 2006Fazzito et al , 2009Terrizzano et al 2008Terrizzano et al , 2010Terrizzano et al , 2012Nivie `re et al 2008;Pa ´nek et al 2011). In the present study, the main objective of applying this methodology has been to provide information on the subsurface geometry of the El Tigre Fault in its Central Segment.…”

“…All ERTs included in this work, with the exception of P7, have been performed with a dipole-dipole array. It is accepted that this option provides good horizontal resolution in resistivity surveys (Loke 1996(Loke -2011 and therefore it is more appropriate for imaging subvertical faults (Caputo et al 2007;Nivie `re et al 2008;Fazzito et al 2009;Pa ´nek et al 2011;Terrizzano et al 2012). For P7, a Wenner-Schlumberger array was chosen to exploit the greater vertical sensibility in order to emphasize the layering of the alluvial deposits.…”

An updated view of the Italian seismicity from probabilistic location in 3D velocity models: The 1981–2018 Italian catalog of absolute earthquake locations (CLASS)

“…Based on geological evidence in this region, some authors hypothesized the presence of a 30 km long WNW-ESE trending fault, the "Scorciabuoi fault" (green trace in the map), initially formed as an oblique-lateral ramp, and then inverted and reactivated as a normal fault (Catalano et al, 1993;Pieri et al, 1994;Pieri et al, 1997; Casciello Patacca and Scandone, 2001). Despite the absence of historical earthquakes, the existence of a late Pleistocene activity of this fault was recently confirmed through a multidisciplinary geological and geophysical study (Caputo et al, 2007). We therefore hypothesize that the scarce seismic activity here reported in our catalog might be related to this fault, essentially at depth while its shallow part is mostly silent.…”

Earthquake-Resistant Structures - Design, Assessment and Rehabilitation

“…ERT surveys have been successfully applied in geology for stratigraphy and cavity detection (Lazzari et al, 2010), fault characterization (Caputo et al, 2007), landslide studies (Lapenna et al, 2005), in hydrogeology, in environmental problems for contaminant plume detection and waste dump characterization (Bavusi et al, 2006), for hydrogeology and coastal salt water intrusion detection (Satriani et al, 2011a), in agricultural for the root-zone characterization (Al Hagrey, 2007;Satriani et al, 2011b), in archaeology and cultural heritage studies . Figure 11 shows an example of ERT carried out on a piling in an area subjected to landslides.…”