Historical Surface Faulting events of ITaly (HSFIT)

HSFIT includes the published existing information on the surface faulting earthquakes occurred in Italy in the past century: the M7, 1915 Avezzano, the M6.9 Irpinia, and the M6,1997 Umbria-Marche events. The review, organization, armonization, digitalization, and georeferencing of the data was performed within a collaboration of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and of the Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA) in the frame of EPOS Italia project. The relevance of HSFIT is to have recovered data and images that describe in detail the surface ruptures produced by these events that, if not digitized and systematized may be lost soon. Most of the observations by contemporary authors were relocated by using modern GPS, although the exact positioning can be affected by uncertainties. These ruptures can provide information on the location, geometry, kinematics and size of the fault slip occurred at depth and, at the same time, by producing important modification in the landscape, they represent a big threat to the human settlements, infrastructures, and activities. Thus, the recovery of these data is critical for the assessment of potential future surface faulting earthquakes.