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Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment
Published in: Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment 8/2019

11-05-2019 | Original Paper

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

Authors: Antonio Costanzo, Anna d’Onofrio, Francesco Silvestri

Published in: Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment | Issue 8/2019

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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the seismic response of the cliff and analyse potential effects due to severe earthquakes, such as those attributed by historical documents to the Calabrian seismic sequence that occurred in 1783.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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Metadata
Title
Seismic response of a geological, historical and architectural site: the Gerace cliff (southern Italy)
Authors
Antonio Costanzo
Anna d’Onofrio
Francesco Silvestri
Publication date
11-05-2019
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment / Issue 8/2019
Print ISSN: 1435-9529
Electronic ISSN: 1435-9537
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-019-01515-0

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