Natural Hazards and Earth System Science www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net 1561-8633 1684-9981 9 6 2009 10.5194/nhess-9-1787-2009 http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/1787/2009/ http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/1787/2009/nhess-9-1787-2009.html http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/1787/2009/nhess-9-1787-2009.pdf 1787 1803 2009-11-05 Clues to the identification of a seismogenic source from environmental effects: the case of the 1905 Calabria (Southern Italy) earthquake A. Tertulliani tertul@ingv.it L. Cucci Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, Italy The 8 September 1905 Calabria (Southern Italy) earthquake belongs to a peculiar family of highly destructive (I₀=XI) seismic events, occurred at the dawning of the instrumental seismology, for which the location, geometry and size of the causative source are still substantially unconstrained. During the century elapsed since the earthquake, previous Authors identified three different epicenters that are more than 50 km apart and proposed magnitudes ranging from <i>M</i>&le;6.2 to <i>M</i>=7.9. Even larger uncertainties were found when the geometry of the earthquake source was estimated. In this study, we constrain the magnitude, location and kinematics of the 1905 earthquake through the analysis of the remarkable environmental effects produced by the event (117 reviewed observations at 73 different localities throughout Calabria). The data used in our analysis include ground effects (landslides, rock falls and lateral spreads) and hydrological changes (streamflow variations, liquefaction, rise of water temperature and turbidity). To better define the magnitude of the event we use a number of empirical relations between seismic source parameters and distribution of ground effects and hydrological changes. 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