All that the small Peille earthquake (south-east of France) can teach us.

The Peille earthquake (M-W = 3.4) occurred on 1st November 1999, 15 km to t he north of the cities of Nice, Monaco and Menton. This event was very well recorded by 20 seismological stations located between 6 and 50 km from the epicenter. We used a non-linear location method and showed that the earthq uake occurred at shallow depth (3 +/-1.5 km) close to the Peille-Laghet fau lt trace. Moreover the computed focal mechanism is consistent with the left lateral strike slip movement of this fault. An empirical Green's function deconvolution showed that the rupture occurred on a fault portion smaller t han 600 m long. This earthquake was also the occasion to point out remarkab le site effect amplifications in some areas of the city of Nice. (C) 2001 A cademie des sciences/Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.