Earthquakes are among the most destructive geodynamic events. Enormous personal and economic loss can be prevented if adequate policies for seismic hazard prevention are implemented. Knowledge on past earthquakes and on current seismicity in a given region are required for effective seismic hazard mitigation.
We focus our research on
- detecting past large earthquakes and characterizing their seismogenic sources (paleoseismology); and
- exploring the impact of considering paleoseismic results in seismic hazard analyses (SHA).
The Eastern Betic ranges (EBSZ) has been our main study area during the last two decades.
Since 2017, together with the central Apennines, this area is considered a European lab for earthquake geology studies within the Fault2SHA consortium. We also work in regions of even slower deformation rates as in the Catalan Coastal ranges and we are starting a stage of seeking for seismic sources in the Pyrenees. Despite of the fact that these areas are highly vulnerable and have experienced destructive historical earthquakes (some of which reached MSK Int= IX), their seismic hazard is only constrained with large uncertainties.