Central Italy hit by sequence of stronger earthquakes

by on 19. January 2017 with No Comments

On January 18th, 2017 the region of Central Italy was hit by sequence of stronger earthquakes, four of them with magnitude higher than 5 (tab. 1). Epicentres of these earthquakes were approximately 20 km NW of L’Aquila and 95 km of Rome. Epicentres are in the same source zone where the destructive earthquake on August 24th, 2016 occurred.

 

Date Time (UTC) Latitude Longitude Magnitude Region
18.1.2017 09:25:41.3 42.56o N 13.26o E 5.3 Central Italy
18.1.2017 10:14:10.8 42.53o N 13.28o E 5.7 Central Italy
18.1.2017 10:25:25.0 42.49o N 13.31o E 5.3 Central Italy
18.1.2017 13:33:37.2 42,.48o N 13.28o E 5.2 Central Italy

 

Tab. 1. List of earthquakes with magnitudes higher than 5 according to the web page www.emsc-csem.org.

 

The earthquakes from January 18th, 2017 are visible also on seismic records from seismic stations of the National Network of Seismic Stations (NNSS) operated by the Earth Science Institute SAS (Fig. 1). First automatic localization of the earthquake epicentre and magnitude estimation (Fig. 2) based on seismic records from NNSS were available several minutes after first seismic waves arrival. These first estimations are in very good correlation with the final earthquake parameters provided by the international seismological centre EMSC-CSEM (Fig. 3).

 

Taliansko-1
Fig. 1. Seismic records of the earthquake from January 18, 2017, 13:33 UTC from the seismic stations on the territory of Slovakia.

 

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Fig. 2. Results of the first automatic processing of the data from NNSS and data of the Virtual Network of Seismic Stations of the Department of Seismology of Earth Science Institute SAS (seismic stations of the Local Network Eastern Slovakia and chosen seismic stations of cooperating institutions from Slovakia and abroad).

 

Taliansko-3
Fig. 3. Location of the earthquake epicentre provided by the international seismological centre EMSC-CSEM.