GPR and high resolution seismic integrated methods to understand the liquefaction phenomena in the Mirabello Village (earthquake ML 5.9, 2012)

•GPR and seismic tomography to study ground effects of the earthquake in Mirabello•Ability of the GPR to map shallow fractures and the liquefied sand bodies•Use of seismic tomographic velocity section to better interpret the GPR data

We performed a geophysical survey in Mirabello, a village of Emilia Romagna Region of Northern Italy, to study the soil affected by the ML 5.9 earthquake of 2012, specifically the formation of surface ruptures by sand ejection due to the liquefaction of shallow subsurface layers. The investigation was carried out using ground penetrating radar and seismic reflection/refraction techniques. This work confirms the importance of electromagnetic waves to map the shallow subsurface extent of fractures and liquefied sand bodies, while the high-resolution seismic reflection profile allowed us to map the fractures at depth. The result obtained by tomographic inversion of first arrivals of seismic data has been compared with a ground penetrating radar section acquired in the same place, furnishing complementary information for the interpretation of the section.