Surface faulting of archaeological relics. A review of case histories fromthe Dead Sea to the Alps

We report several cases of surface faulting on archaeological relics along the Dead Sea Valley, in Crete, and in central and northern Italy. With the exception of the Fucino normal faults (central Italy), all the faulting is related to strike-slip or oblique motions. We describe only those sites for which paleoseismological or specific geological analyses had confirmed the existence of an active fault, thus omitting any ambiguous interpretation o f effects attributable to other natural or anthropic phenomena. All the cas es reviewed allowed us to assume the age of the faulting event and the amou nt of slip, thus characterising unknown or poorly known destructive earthqu akes. The use of archaeoseismological analyses, and particularly of the fau lting of archaeological relics, always improves our knowledge of the seismi city and seismotectonics of regions for which the information about the his torical seismicity and/or the geological evidence are scarce or uncertain. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.