3D geological model of L'Aquila historical downtown: preliminary results of high-resolution seismic reflection profiles

The Mw 6.1 earthquake struck on April 6, 2009 a wide area of the Abruzzi region in central Italy, causing strong damages in L’Aquila town and surroundings. L’Aquila historical downtown, encircled inside the medieval walls, was strongly affected and some important site effects were recognized (Martelli et al., 2012). Previous works have suggested that different amplification effects, recorded into the historical downtown, may be related to the complex subsurface geologic architecture, given by the variability of the thickness and the lithology of the Quaternary deposits, on which the city was built (Martelli et al., 2012). Thus, after April 6, 2009 earthquake, to improve the subsoil model for the seismic site response estimation and the Seismic Hazard evaluation of L’Aquila historical downtown, a multitask project has been carried out. It consists of the integration of subsurface dataset, including geological and geophysical surveys. The data have been interpreted with the aim to reconstruct a detailed 3D geological model of the Quaternary filling part of the continental basin on which L’Aquila historical downtown is located and the geometries of the Meso-Cenozoic bedrock located below the Quaternary cover. More precisely, we report the preliminary results concerning the interpretation of three high-resolution seismic reflection profiles provided in SEG-Y format by the IAMC-CNR research group.