Abstract
Microearthquake digital data collected at Campi Flegrei during the recent (1982–1985) ground uplift episode have been analyzed in order to infer source and medium seismic properties. The main results obtained from these analyses are:
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1.
Hypocenter distribution and the size of the seismic zone do not change with time and do not depend on the ground uplift rate. Events occurred clustered in time with no simple causal relations between the cluster occurrences and their energy.
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2.
Anelastic attenuation does not depend strongly on frequency, showing a constant pattern at high frequencies. The observed values of low and high frequency attenuation, due to the short source receiver distances, do not seriously affect the spectral content of signals radiated by the sources.
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3.
A constant Brune stress drop pattern (∼4–5 bars) as a function of seismic moment is observed. This indicates that the manner of fracturing is almost independent on magnitude of earthquakes (hypothesis of self-similarity (Aki, 1967)). Seismic processes in a prefractured medium can explain the observed small stress drop values.
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4.
Focal mechanisms from moment tensor estimates show that radiation patterns are mostly well interpreted in terms of double couple source models.
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5.
The scaling of peak ground motion parameters (A max andV max vs seismic moment) can be explained by an ω2 source model (constant stress drop) multiplied by an exponential function with a small decay parameter, which takes into account the measured attenuation.
These results support the hypothesis of earthquakes generated by simple shear fractures along prefractured structures as a response to changes in the stress field due to the ground deformation.
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De Natale, G., Iannaccone, G., Martini, M. et al. Seismic sources and attenuation properties at the Campi Flegrei volcanic area. PAGEOPH 125, 883–917 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00879360
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00879360