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Seismic response of a geological, historical and architectural site: the Gerace cliff (southern Italy)

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Abstract

Several historical towns and sites in Italy and other parts of Southern Europe were built on topographic reliefs, and they host inestimable cultural heritage. In Calabria (southern Italy), the historical town of Gerace is located in a highly seismic area and lies on top of an unstable cliff, constituted by a soft rock slab overlying a thick clay shale formation. A comprehensive study was carried out to reproduce the seismic response of the cliff and analyse potential effects due to severe earthquakes, such as those attributed by historical documents to the Calabrian seismic sequence that occurred in 1783. Much effort was spent on the geotechnical characterisation of the soils; in particular, a subsoil model was obtained by combining data from field and laboratory tests. The seismic response of the cliff due to the first event of the Calabrian sequence was simulated by 1D and 2D non-linear analyses, which enabled an assessment of the influence of topography on the seismic response. The 2D analyses justified the occurrence of large permanent deformations, as reported by the chronicles following the historical seismic sequence.

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Acknowledgments

Some parts of this study were performed within the framework of the S3 Research Project 2004-06, sponsored by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and funded by the Dipartimento di Protezione Civile (DPC) of the Italian Government. Therefore, the authors are indebted to the DPC and to the project team coordinators, Dr. Francesca Pacor and Prof. M. Mucciarelli, for their valuable support. Profs. J.P. Stewart, G. Lanzo, F. Bozzano, S. Martino and I. Guerra, as well as Dr. F. Galadini and Dr. P. Tommasi, are also warmly acknowledged for the fruitful discussions and suggestions. The authors are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the Editor-in-Chief Prof. L. N.Y. Wong for their constructive comments which helped us improve the quality of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rende, CS, Italy

    Antonio Costanzo

  2. Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Anna d’Onofrio & Francesco Silvestri

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  1. Antonio Costanzo
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  2. Anna d’Onofrio
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Correspondence to Antonio Costanzo.

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Costanzo, A., d’Onofrio, A. & Silvestri, F. Seismic response of a geological, historical and architectural site: the Gerace cliff (southern Italy). Bull Eng Geol Environ 78, 5617–5633 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-019-01515-0

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