Faglie attive in superficie nella Pianura Padana presso Correggio (Reggio Emilia) e Massa Finalese (Modena)

Abstract

Active faults, which have been localized in the Po Valley (Northern Italy) near Correggio and Massa Finalese (Provincia of Reggio Emilia and Modena: side South of the River Po), are described in this paper. In Correggio the fault, developed along a NNE-SSW trend, crosses a new residential area and has caused various damages to buildings, roads, walls, etc. In Massa Finalese the fault is localized in the open country and is put in evidence by a series of well-shaped collapses with a WNW-ESE trend. In both places causes connected with particular hydrogeological conditions of the underground or with geotechnical characteristics of the soil can be excluded. On the contrary, a series of data, such as the fault-lines in the satellite photographs, same dislocations present in the nearby area (Mirandola; Provincia of Modena) in the immediate underground and recognized through the water or oil well lithostratigraphies, the particular chemism of the underground waters (e.g. excess of SiO2), the buried structures surveyed by AGIP during the oil research prospecting and the seismic characteristics of the area, lead to the same conclusion: the shear-structures described near Correggio and Massa Finalese coincide with active faults, interesting the Holocenic and Pleistocenic alluvial cover; both of them seem to be connected with the same structure represented by a buried hill (« Ferrara Anticline »).