What earthquakes say concerning residual subduction and STEP dynamics in the Calabrian Arc region, south Italy

By relocation of shallow and intermediate depth earthquakes and joint evaluation of already available and properly estimated waveform inversion focal mechanisms we investigate the location and shallow kinematics of the residual subducting slab in the Calabrian Arc region, that is the only, apparently still active segment of the old subduction front of the western Mediterranean. In agreement with high P-wave velocity anomaly found at intermediate depths by previous local earthquake tomography, our shallow-to-intermediate earthquake hypocentre distribution shows that the Ionian subducting slab is still in-depth continuous only in a small internal segment of the Arc, while detachment or break-off processes have already developed elsewhere along the Arc. At the same time, the space distribution and the waveform inversion focal mechanisms of the earthquakes occurring at shallow depth (<70km) do not evidence Subduction Transform Edge Propagator (STEP) fault activity at the edges of the descending slab. In particular, no trace is found of dip-slip faulting along near vertical planes parallel to the slab edges, that is no seismic evidence is available of vertical motion between the subducting segment of the plate and the adjacent portion of it. Also, the seismicity distribution and mechanisms found at crustal depths in the study region do not match properly with the expected scenario of relative motion at the lateral borders of the overriding plate. Our earthquake locations and mechanisms together with GPS information taken from the literature highlight a residual, laterally very short subducting slab showing quasi-nil velocity of trench retreat and no present-day STEP activity, still capable however of causing strong normal-faulting earthquakes in the trench area through its gravity-induced shallow deformation in a weak-coupling scenario.