Short Note Investigating Rupture Direction for Three 2012 Moderate Earthquakes in Northern Italy from Inversion of Peak Ground-Motion Parameters

Abstract We investigate the possibility of inferring the dominant horizontal-rupture direction for moderate earthquakes from the inversion of peak ground-motion parameters. To this aim, we adopt a technique that was devised and applied to large earthquakes for retrieving both the dominant rupture direction and the surface fault projection to be used with a proper distance metric to refine the ShakeMap computa-tion. In the present paper, the procedure was applied to three moderate earthquakes that occurred in 2012 in Northern Italy three days apart: the M 4.2 Pre-Alpi Venet