Effects of the hydrothermal circulation on the strain field of the Campanian Plain (southern Italy)

Focal mechanisms of earthquakes and fault‐slip data have been collected to constrain the strain regime acting in the hydrothermal zone and surrounding areas of the Campanian Plain (southern Italy), a NW–SE elongated structural depression. The NW–SE striking faults bounding the depression move in response to a NE–SW striking regional extension. Within the depression, an extended hydrothermal circulation occurs related to the Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei and Ischia active volcanoes. In this zone, the strike of the extension is N–S. Results from a finite element model constrained by the collected data show that the presence of a lower rigidity zone due to the hydrothermal circulation may explain (a) the observed deflection of the direction of regional extension, and (b) why large magnitude earthquakes occur at the boundaries of the hydrothermal zone and not along the faults delimiting the structural depression.