A model for seismicity rates observed during the 1982–1984 unrest at Campi Flegrei caldera (Italy)

We consider the space–time distribution of seismicity during the 1982–1984 unrest at Campi Flegrei caldera (Italy) where a correlation between seismicity and rate of ground uplift was suggested. In order to investigate this effect, we present a model based on stress transfer from the deformation source responsible for the unrest to potential faults. We compute static stress changes caused by an inflating source in a layered half-space. Stress changes are evaluated on optimally oriented planes for shear failure, assuming a regional stress with horizontal extensional axis trending NNE-SSW. The inflating source is modeled as inferred by previous studies from inversion of geodetic data with the same crustal model here assumed. The magnitude of the regional stress is constrained by imposing an initial condition of “close to failure” to potential faults. The resulting spatial distribution of stress changes is in agreement with observations. We assume that the temporal evolution of ground displacement, observed by a tide-gauge at Pozzuoli, was due mainly to time dependent processes occurring at the inflating source. We approximate this time dependence in piecewise-linear way and we attribute it to each component of average stress-change in the region interested by the observed seismicity. Then we evaluate the effect of a time dependent stressing rate on seismicity, by following the approach indicated by Dieterich (1994) on the basis of the rate- and state-dependent rheology of faults. The seismicity rate history resulting from our model is in general agreement with data during the period 1982–1984 for reasonable values of unconstrained model-parameters, the initial value of the direct effect of friction and the reference shear stressing rate. In particular, this application shows that a decreasing stressing-rate is effective in damping the seismicity rate. ►Stress changes and induced seismicity in a volcanic context. ►Regional stress influences seismic locations and fault plane solutions. ►Seismicity rates are estimated with time-dependent, shear and normal stress changes. ►Seismicity rates are affected by either increasing or decreasing stressing rates.