Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Dec 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufm.u52b..05g&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #U52B-05
Mathematics
Logic
6620 Science Policy, 7221 Paleoseismology, 7230 Seismicity And Seismotectonics, 8400 Volcanology
Scientific paper
This work presents the results of a research that was carried out to further our knowledge of the active faults in south-western Sicily. The only seismic event of particular significance that is known to have occurred is that of 15 January 1968 (Io= XMCS, Me 6.5) in the Belice valley. The archaeological park of Selinunte, the largest in the Mediterranean area, with its great temples and evidence of spectacular collapses, has been taken as a source of information capable of analysis by means of the methodological approach of archaeoseismology. The identification of the seismic indicators at Selinunte necessitated a detailed analysis of both old and new archaeological evidence, together with a critical re-examination of all the archaeological literature and existing documents dating from to the eighteenth century, together with travelers' accounts of that time. The history of the archaeological deposits, spoliation, and excavations has been reconstructed. These data are reinterpreted in the light of both the new discoveries of the most recent research, and of a number of methodological criteria already used in previous works on archaeoseismology. This long and complex analysis was carried out in 1998-99 with Anna Muggia, Clemente Marconi and Enzo Boschi in the research programme of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. It resulted in the identification of two seismic events that struck Selinunte and led to the collapse of the temples. The chronology of the earthquakes can be dated, for the first, to a period between the fourth and third century BC; for the second, to a period between the sixth and the thirteen century AD. Although the time span proposed, particularly for the second earthquake, is very broad, it does not mean that this earthquake is in anyway hypothetical from a geophysical point of view. Its traces are clear, but the long periods when the site was abandoned mitigate against the fixing of a precise date for the event. In order to reach the conclusions it was necessary in addition to analyze and visualize in a systematic way the direction of collapse of the temples. This work provided new information for an archaeological identification of the two seismic events, as well as making an important contribution from the seismic point of view, namely data on the direction of collapse and the general relationship of these data to the whole Selinunte site. These results now make it possible to engage on new paleoseismic research into the location of the faults involved, and engineering research to construct a model of the response of the temples to a seismic event, and calculate an possible acceleration value.
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