Reply to: Comment by A. Argnani on the paper: The Strait of Messina: Seismotectonics and the source of the 1908 earthquake (Earth-Science Reviews 218, 2021, 103,685)

Argnani (2021, hereinafter ARG2021) commented on the paper by Barreca et al. (2021, hereinafter BRC2021) titled: The Strait of Messina: Seismotectonics and the source of the 1908 earthquake , in which a new seismotectonic model and constraints on the possible source fault (the so-called W-Fault) for the 1908 disastrous seismic event were provided. Results from BRC2021 led to a revision of most of the previously published papers on the issue. ARG2021 commented both on the recent activity of the W-Fault and even about its existence in the offshore. In fact, according to the author's inferences: it may belong to a fault system that is no longer active and, contradictorily, the offshore occurrence of the W-Fault is not supported by the data . The comment is mostly based on a new tectonic interpretation that the author performed directly on the BRC2021 figures, where the offshore portion of the W-fault is illustrated. In this reply, we demonstrate that the interpretation provided by ARG2021 is affected by several oversights that led the author to erroneous conclusions about the issue. Accordingly, we strongly confirm both the occurrence of the W-Fault in the offshore and the present-day activity of this structure, the only active fault capable of producing large earthquakes in the Strait of Messina area.

Automated summary

This article comments on a paper by Barreca et al. (2021) on the 1908 earthquake and discusses the new seismotectonic model and possible source fault proposed by the authors. The commenter challenges the claim that the W-Fault is no longer active and questions the lack of data supporting its offshore occurrence. They demonstrate that the interpretation provided by the original paper is flawed and reaffirm the existence and current activity of the W-Fault in the offshore area.