INGV and Chinese University Launch PaleoBAYES Model to Reconstruct Historic Earthquake Magnitudes

Researchers from Italy's Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen have created an open‑source Bayesian algorithm called PaleoBAYES. The tool integrates three key geological measurements—surface displacement, fault‑rupture length and event age—to estimate the magnitude of paleoseismic events with quantified uncertainty.

The method was applied to a new database, PaleoEcA, containing 44 paleoevents from the central Apennines over the past 27,000 years. By accounting for the decreasing preservation probability of older traces and the Gutenberg‑Richter frequency‑magnitude relationship, PaleoBAYES provides credible intervals rather than single‑value estimates. The algorithm was validated on historically documented earthquakes, such as the 1915 Fucino event, demonstrating its potential to improve seismic hazard assessments.