Seismicity patterns in Vrancea and predictive features

Notable clustering effects in seismic activity are observed at the sharp bend of the South-Eastern Carpathians both at subcrustal and crustal domains. The seismic energy release is strongly increasing with depth, where apparently the principal source controlling the geodynamics of the entire system is located. New developments of instrumental monitoring and relatively extended historical data spanning several seismic cycles in Vrancea allow refined analyses of earthquake patterns, outlining high-resolution images of specific alignments of seismicity in the Vrancea region. Refined joint locations are carried out for the most recent earthquakes, produced after 1995. In parallel, a new approach has been implemented to produce numerical simulations of the Vrancea seismic cycle and to reproduce its main characteristics: return period, main shock magnitude, depth location, non-linear frequency-magnitude distribution, aftershock activity and their variability from one cycle to other.