AHEAD European Archive of Historical EArthquake DataEuropean Archive of Historical EArthquake Data

The Catalogue lists earthquakes that occurred in Italy between 461 B.C. and 1997, and earthquakes that occurred in the general Mediterranean area between the VIII century b.C. and the XV century. This version (CFTI5Med) features: the retrieval and formatting of over 23,000 original bibliographic documents, transcribed or printed, nearly 50% of those utilized in the CFTI5Med. These documents are now available on-line as fully searchable pdf files; a full geological reinterpretation, georeferencing and reprocessing of over 2,300 descriptions of earthquake-induced environmental effects, which are now all available and searchable in a user-friendly web-GIS environment; the elaboration of a number of texts and commentaries that were missing from the CFTI4Med version of the catalogue; a totally re-designed and more efficient web- and web-GIS interface. The new Catalogo dei Forti Terremoti in ltalia includes 1,259 earthquakes that occurred in Italy (98 of which are currently considered false). No commentaries on the main earthquake effects were available in the previous version of the catalogue for 87 of such events as they had not been updated with respect to the information supplied in Guidoboni e Comastri (2005) for the 1000 AD-1500 AD time interval. The commentaries concerning the most significant effects of Italian medieval earthquakes have now been elaborated and are available along with the information on more recent events. For the remainder of the earthquakes first presented with the CFTI4Med - those that occurred in the general Mediterranean area away from the Italian coasts - the new catalogue provides only the felt reports and basic epicentral parameters.

A study of some earthquakes (M > 5.3) affecting Southeastern Sicily was performed to define their seismic sources and to estimate seismic hazard in the region. An analysis of historical reports allowed us to reassess intensities of the 1542, 1693, 1818, 1848 and 1990 earthquakes by using the new European Macroseismic Scale 98. The new intensity data were used to define parameters and the orientation of seismic sources. The sources obtained were compared with the ones computed using the MCS intensities retrieved from the Catalogue of Strong Italian Earthquakes. The adopted procedure gives results that are statistically significant, but both the epicentre location and source azimuth, in some cases, are strongly affected by the azimuthal gap in the intensity distribution. This is evident mainly for the 1693 January earthquakes. For these earthquakes the macroseismic data uncertainty gives significantly different solutions, and does not allow the events to be associated with known active faults. By handling the new estimated intensity data and using the site seismic histories, the seismic hazard for some localities was calculated. The highest probability of occurrence, for destructive events (I = 10), was obtained in the area between Catania, Lentini and Augusta, suggesting that the seismogenic sources are located near the Ionian coast.