Fractal, Spectral, and Topological Analysis of the Reservoir-Induced Seismicity of Pertusillo Area (Southern Italy)

Telesca L., Panebianco S., Serlenga V., Stabile T. A.

MDPI Fractal and Fractional,  9(4), Art. N. 208, 2025 | doi: 10.3390/fractalfract9040208

ABSTRACT:

This study analyzes the temporal dynamics of instrumental seismicity recorded in the Pertusillo reservoir area (Southern Italy) between 2001 and 2018. The Gutenberg–Richter analysis of the frequency–magnitude distribution reveals that the seismic catalog is complete for events with magnitudes 𝑀 ≥ 1.1. The time-clustering of the sequence is at both global and local levels with a coefficient of variation 𝐶𝑣 and 𝐿𝑣 significantly beyond the 95% confidence band. The Allan Factor method, applied to the series of earthquake occurrence times, corroborates the found time-clustering, showing a bi-fractal behavior indicated by the co-existence of two scaling regimes with a cutoff time scale 𝜏𝑐 ≈ 45 days and two different fractal exponents, 𝛼 ≈ 0.3 for time scales less than 𝜏𝑐 and 𝛼 ≈ 1.2 for larger ones. The application of the correlogram-based periodogram to both the monthly number of events and the monthly mean water level of the Pertusillo reservoir identifies the yearly cycle as the most significant in both variables. The connection between seismicity and the water level is also demonstrated by the value above 0.5 of the Average Edge Overlap (AEO), a topological metric derived from the Visibility Graph method applied to both the monthly variables. Furthermore, the variation in the AEO between the monthly mean water level and the monthly number of events, along with the time delay between them, indicates that the first leads the second by 1 month.