Seismic events like the one that hit the province of Rovigo today, whose magnitude is currently estimated at 4.2, “there are between 15-20 per year”. The president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology Carlo Doglioni explained it to Adnkronos, specifying that “these are therefore not particularly energetic events”. However, it should be underlined that the tremor, which was felt from Veneto to Emilia Romagna, occurred “in an area known to be seismically active, we are talking about the front of the Apennine chain buried under the southern part of the Po Valley”. Previously, in the same area, “just a few kilometers away from today’s earthquake, exactly in July 2011, there was a 4.5 magnitude shock – recalls Doglioni – A year later on the southernmost structures, about ten kilometers further south , the earthquake in Emilia occurred”.
In more detail, adds the president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, “in the area between Bologna and Padua there is a shortening of the crust of about 2 millimeters per year which is precisely responsible for this seismicity”. It is therefore “a compressive mechanism”, which in the past “gave rise to the 2012 sequence”.
“Already today there have been small subsequent shocks, generally this type of sequence lasts quite a short time. Whether it could then evolve into a major event is not foreseeable at the moment but we cannot rule it out”, continues Doglioni. Which however excludes, with certainty, that there is any relationship with other earthquakes that occurred in the previous hours on the rest of the Peninsula. “No relationship,” he clarifies.
Source-www.adnkronos.com