Spatiotemporal evolution of the Central Apennines fault system (Italy)

A variety of models show that crustal deformation is a self-organized process on long (geologic) timescales. In this paper, we analyse an active seismogenic crustal-scale fault system (the Central Apennines Fault System or CAFS) with the aim of assessing the spatial and temporal characteristics of fault development and related earthquake activity. The basic properties of the CAFS, as derived from our study, are then compared with those of other fault systems worldwide in order to validate/constrain the results of available statistical physics models based on self organized criticality (SOC).