Seismicity of Sicily before 1000AD: archaeological evidence
by
Carla Bottari
University of Messina
Coauthors: Stathis C. Stiros (University of Patras), Antonio Teramo (University of Messina)

Seismicity of Sicily before 9th century AD is nearly totally unknown, since there is only vague historical evidence for one or two late 4th century AD earthquakes. A detailed investigation of ancient ruins permitted to identify a probably 3rd century BC earthquake, as well as traces of an earthquake which correlates with the 365 Crete, M>8.5 earthquake which have caused major damage in the island. The silence of historical sources does not therefore indicate an absence of seismicity in Sicily during the study period; on the contrary, the scale of damage deduced from archaeological data indicates that the effects of these two, and probably of other earthquakes were printed over the history of the island.

Date received: March 5, 2002

Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caiq-45.