Recent seismicity before the 24 August 2016 Mw 6.0 central Italy earthquake as recorded by the ReSIICO seismic network

Abstract

We present the seismicity of the last four years before the MW 6.0 earthquake of August 24, 2016, 01:36 UTC in central Italy, with the aim of understanding the preparatory phase of the event. Our preliminary results show that no significant seismic sequence occurred in the months before the mainshock of August 24, 2016 and that there is little similarity between seismicity clusters in the last four years and the aftershocks. We pay attention to differences between the preparatory phase of the Amatrice earthquake and two other seismic sequences: the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake that was preceded by a seismic sequence, and the 2013-2015 Gubbio seismic swarm that, to date, did end without including any strong event.