Fault2SHA Fault Displacement Hazard Lab (FDH)

Surface faulting is a common occurrence for crustal earthquakes and is a relevant source of localized hazard to buildings and infrastructures. Fault displacement may occur on the seismogenic plane (primary or principal fault) and on other structures (secondary or distributed faulting) in the vicinity of the primary fault.

Surface faulting occurred after the 30 October 2016 Centra Italy earthquake. The white stripe at the base of the carbonatic fault plane represents the coseismic slip. Photo by F. Ferrario.

After the successful 6th Fault2SHA meeting held in Chieti on 19-20 January 2023, acknowledging the need of common efforts on this topic, we decided to create within the Fault2SHA Working Group the Thematic Fault Displacement Hazard Lab.

Core members

Paolo Boncio*, Francesca Ferrario, Stéphane Baize

*contact paolo.boncio (at) unich.it

Participants (last update June 6, 2023)

  1. Paolo Boncio, UniCH, Italy
  2. Stéphane Baize, IRSN, France
  3. Francesca Ferrario, UniInsubria, Italy
  4. Alessandro Valentini, INGV, Italy
  5. Francesco Iezzi, UniNA Federico II, Italy
  6. Alessandro Tibaldi, UniMI Bicocca, Italy
  7. Carlos Costa, Uni San Luis, Argentina
  8. Dylan H. Rood, Royal School of Mines Imperial College London, UK
  9. Raffaele Azzaro, INGV CT, Italy
  10. Krzysztof Gaidzik, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
  11. Marco Pizza, UniInsubria, Italy
  12. Giorgio Tringali, UniInsubria, Italy
  13. Michela Colombo, UniInsubria, Italy
  14. Franz Livio, UniInsubria, Italy
  15. Thio Hong Kie, AECOM LA (aecom.com), USA
  16. Lisa Mammarella, UniCH, Italy
  17. Alessio Testa, UniCH, Italy
  18. Bruno Pace, UniCH, Italy
  19. Francesco Visini, INGV, Italy
  20. Oona Scotti, IRSN, France
  21. Yacine Benjelloun, SEISTER, France
  22. Ramon Arrowsmith, Arizona State University, USA
  23. Sebastien Hok, IRSN, France
  24. Alba Rodriguez Padilla, University of California Davis, USA
  25. Fiia Nurminen, RINA, Italy
  26. Laura Peruzza OGS, Italy
  27. Hugo Fernandez UNICH-OGS, Italy
  28. Tim Stahl, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
  29. Robb Moss, California Polytechnic State University, USA
  30. Marco Meschis, INGV, Italy
  31. Eshaan Srivastava, IIT Kanpur, India
  32. Albert Kottke, PG&E Geosciences
  33. Chris Madugo, PG&E Geosciences
  34. Chris Milliner, CalTech, USA
  35. Alexandra Sarmiento, UCLA, USA
  36. Chelsea Scott, Arizona State University, USA
  37. Mindy Zuckerman, Arizona State University, USA
  38. Rachel Adam, Arizona State University, USA
  39. Emilia Fiorini, RINA, Italy
  40. Alessandro Todrani, RINA, Italy
  41. Selina Bonini, Uni Bologna, Italy
  42. Octavi Goméz Novell, Instituto geológico y minero de España, Spain
  43. Athanassios Ganas, National Observatory of Athens, Greece
  44. Angela Franceschet, Università di Trieste, Italy
  45. Diana Cinthia Soria Caballero, Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra, UMSNH, Mexico
  46. Adriana Fátima Ornelas Agrela, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
  47. Steven Jeffrey Brooks, Università di Catania, Italy
  48. Nicklas Nordbäck, Geological Survey of Finland, Finland

If you would like to join the Lab, please send an e-mail to the contact person*

Key Questions

  • Which parameters influence the surface expression of fault rupture?
  • How to integrate geological, geodetical and modeling data to evaluate the hazard posed by principal and distributed faulting?
  • Which kind of information is required by stakeholders (e.g., land planners, risk managers, managers of critical infrastructures)?
  • How to properly quantify the rupture hazard?

Specific Aims

  • Create a research group at European level interested in the topics of earthquake surface rupturing and fault displacement hazard analysis.
  • Attract the interest of researchers working in different disciplines (geology, geodesy, fault modelling, hazard modelling) to create an interdisciplinary group.
  • Promote research topics in FDH for PhD students and provide networking and learning opportunities for students and scientists at an early career stage.
  • Share ideas and results to better orient future research activities and identify priorities in the lines of actions.
  • Find a possible common activity where all the group can interact.
  • Promote interaction with end-users (this is a topic with high applicative potential).
  • Promote scientific sessions at congresses and publication of special issues.
  • Facilitate the interaction for funding applications.

Short-term plans

The first initiative is to have an informal meeting to share ideas, show ongoing research activities and possibly start planning future collaborations.

The kick-off meeting of the Fault2SHA Thematic Lab on Fault Displacement Hazard was held online, on Wed June 14 2023, at 15-16:30 UTC. Watch the recording here!

The Fault Displacement Hazard Laboratory (FDH Lab) is organizing online meetings to share ideas and the latest results on the topics of interest. The purpose of each talk is to give the floor to invited speakers, who will teach the participants about a specific topic or initiative. We intend the talks as a place where people can learn about a topic in an informal atmosphere: we ask speakers for a general overview of their research along the lines of a taught lecture, followed by a Q&A session. The Lab talks should provide the grounds to enhance collaboration among the Lab members and identify “hot topics” as a subject of discussion and future efforts.

FDH Lab Talk n° 1 – Sep 28, 2023

Speaker: Alexandra Sarmiento (Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center (NHR3), University of California, Los Angeles)

Title: “Overview of the University of California’s Fault Displacement Hazard Initiative Project”. The recording is available here.

FDH Lab Talk n° 2 – Nov 21 2023

Speakers: Chelsea Scott and Rachel Adam (Arizona University)

Title: “Evaluating a systematized active fault mapping approach used to predict earthquake surface rupture locations”. Watch it here.

FDH Lab Talk n° 3 – Jan 31 2024

Speaker: Francesca Ferrario (Insubria University)

Title: “Likelihood of primary surface faulting: state of the art and future challenges“. Watch it here.

FDH Lab Talk n° 4 – Jun 26 2024

Speaker: Alessandro Valentini, INGV (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Italy)

Title: “Comparison among different PFDHA models”. Watch it here.

FDH Lab Talk n° 5 – Mar 28 2025

Speaker: Francesco Visini, INGV (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Italy)

Title: “Rank-Dependent Empirical Regressions for Distributed Faulting of Dip-Slip Earthquakes“. Watch it here.

FDH Lab Talk n° 6 – Apr 10 2025

Speaker: Octavi Goméz Novell, Instituto geológico y minero de España, Spain

Title: “Fault Surface rupture probabilities derived from an earthquake cycle simulator“. Watch it here.

FDH Lab Talk n° 7 – Jun 11 2025

Speaker: Alessio testa, University of Chieti, Italy

Title: “PFDHA, an application for distributed faulting for a strategic Dam in Central Italy“. Watch it here.

Become a Fault2SHA member (specifying FDH Lab) if you want to be updated on future initiatives.

Some Recent Publications

Baize, S., Nurminen, F., Sarmiento, A., Dawson, T., Takao, M., Scotti, O., Azuma, T., Boncio, P., Champenois, J., Cinti, F. R., Civico, R., Costa, C., Guerrieri, L., Marti, E., McCalpin, J., Okumura, K., & Villamor, P. (2020). A Worldwide and Unified Database of Surface Ruptures (SURE) for Fault Displacement Hazard Analyses. Seismological Research Letters, 91(1), 499–520. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220190144
Boncio, P., Liberi, F., Caldarella, M., & Nurminen, F.-C. (2018). Width of surface rupture zone for thrust earthquakes: implications for earthquake fault zoning. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 18(1), 241–256. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-241-2018
Testa, A., Valentini, A., Boncio, P., Pace, B., Visini, F., Mirabella, F., & Pauselli, C. (2021). Probabilistic fault displacement hazard analysis of the Anghiari - Città di Castello normal fault (Italy). Italian Journal of Geosciences, 140(3), 327–346. https://doi.org/10.3301/IJG.2021.07
Ferrario, M. F., & Livio, F. (2021). Conditional probability of distributed surface rupturing during normal-faulting earthquakes. Solid Earth, 12(5), 1197–1209. https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-1197-2021
Pizza, M., Ferrario, M. F., Thomas, F., Tringali, G., & Livio, F. (2023). Likelihood of Primary Surface Faulting: Updating of Empirical Regressions. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 113(5), 2106–2118. https://doi.org/10.1785/0120230019
Nurminen, F., Baize, S., Boncio, P., Blumetti, A. M., Cinti, F. R., Civico, R., & Guerrieri, L. (2022). SURE 2.0 – New release of the worldwide database of surface ruptures for fault displacement hazard analyses. Scientific Data, 9(1), 729. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01835-z
Nurminen, F., Boncio, P., Visini, F., Pace, B., Valentini, A., Baize, S., & Scotti, O. (2020). Probability of Occurrence and Displacement Regression of Distributed Surface Rupturing for Reverse Earthquakes. Frontiers in Earth Science, 8, 581605. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2020.581605

Ongoing Doctoral Thesis

Fault Displacement Hazard on Principal Fault rupture: probability of occurrence, slip distribution and role of surface geology. PhD student: L. Mammarella, University of Chieti – Pescara, Italy & IRSN, France.

Characterization of Active and Capable Faults through the acquisition and analysis of high resolution DTMs and the interpretation of subsurface geophysical prospecting. PhD student: M. Colombo, Insubria University, Italy, XXXVIII cycle.

Characterizing fault displacement and earthquake environmental effects in the framework of siting the Italian repository for radioactive wastes. PhD student: M. Pizza, Insubria University, Italy, XXXVII cycle.

Seismic potential of active and capable faults nearby energy-industry strategic infrastructures in Northern Italy: collection analysis and representation tools of multidisciplinary datasets. PhD student: H. Fernandez, University of Chieti – Pescara & OGS, Trieste, Italy, XXXVIII cycle.