A study of seismicity and earthquake swarms in the Central Mediterranean

Abstract

A study has been made of the seismicity taking place in the Central Mediterranean region during the last 7 years (1996 -2002). 118 earthquakes recorded at Wied Dalam Broadband seismic station, Malta, have been studied and the magnitude-frequency statistics were calculated for the whole region. Occurrence of earthquake swarms has been observed in the data. This swarm activity has been observed between the beginning of 2000 and the middle of 2001. Earthquake swarms are characterized by earthquakes taking place in short temporal sequence in a narrowly restricted area. There is no dominant earthquake in the sequence. Swarms tend to build clusters. They were identified by space-time clustering and by the waveform/frequency characteristics. Although all epicenters could not be located because of the inadequate amount of data accessible, some major events were located by making use of extended phase data from Sicily, Tunisia and Malta.