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Reply to "Comment on ‘Layered Seismogenic Source Model and Probabilistic Seismic-Hazard Analyses in Central Italy’ by B. Pace, L. Peruzza, G. Lavecchia, and P. Boncio" by W. Marzocchi

¹ Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS)
Borgo Grotta Gigante 42/c
34010 Sgonico (TS) Italy
lperuzza@inogs.it
 (L.P.)
² GeoSisLab
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra
Università degli Studi "G. D'Annunzio"
Via dei Vestini, 30
66013 Chieti Scalo (CH) Italy
b.pace@unich.it
g.lavecchia@unich.it
p.boncio@unich.it
 (B.P., G.L., P.B.)

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We greatly appreciate the interest in and feedback on our article. We will address the comments in the next paragraphs, following the comment points.

Our article is not a novel or new approach to quantifying the recurrence behavior and seismic hazard of faults in Italy. Fault recurrence behavior has been addressed previously in northeastern Italy (e.g., Papoulia and Slejko, 1992; Slejko and Rebez, 2000), southern Italy (Peruzza et al., 1997), central Italy (e.g., MISHA project, Peruzza, 1999), or the whole country (Amato and Selvaggi, 2004; Romeo, 2005). What is new, however, is the systematic incorporation of all available active-fault information into a probabilistic seismic- hazard analysis (PSHA) for Italy, rather than only partial use of these data.

Marzocchi accepts that almost all earthquakes occur on previously active faults, but because fault catalogs are usually not complete, regular spatial grids or seismogenic provinces better fit the needs of seismic-hazard assessment and earthquake forecasting in Italy. We believe that his assumption is valid in most parts of Italy, but not true in some best- understood regions. Of course, we do not suggest that the seismological records for all the active faults are complete, an opinion that probably would have been shared by Omori, when, in the same area study, he was wondering about a seismic gap, a few years before the 1915 Fucino earthquake (Omori, 1909). In our article, the completeness of historical and instrumental earthquake catalogs is analyzed (see "Seismological Databases" paragraph in Pace et al., 2006, and references therein) using common methods and well-known procedures. As for the completeness of an active-fault catalog, we simply do not know how to do it, except by using intuitive, simple, and reasonable rules. A posteriori, we . . . [Full Text of this Article]