Preface

The unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic of the last year has threatened the global economy and situated all of us in a critical psychological challenge to survive such an immense impact on our lives and loved ones. Employees have had to transition to working from home and students have had to adjust to full-time remote learning. Teachers have learned to communicate via telematics tools with students and peers. We prepared this book during a time of unique challenges that heightened the importance of publishing sound, expertly reviewed research. This book is the result of the tireless effort of twenty-seven distinguished scholars from eight different countries. It is confirmation that researchers will continue their important work even during times of crisis.

*Earthquakes - From Tectonics to Buildings* is organized into three sections containing eight chapters. Section 1, "Tectonics and Seismicity," includes Chapters 1–4. In Chapter 1, Gatinsky and Prokhorova explain the intracontinental seismic activity in South Siberia and the Russian far east. The seismogenic zones' geodynamic activity connects, besides plate interaction, with deep lithosphere structure and anomalies of the different geophysical fields and blocks' kinematics. In Chapter 2, Mantovani, Tamburelli, Babbucci, Viti, and Cenni explain the short-term development of Italy's Periadriatic zone's ongoing tectonic processes influence in the spatio-temporal distribution of major shocks, emphasizing the future challenges of the seismic hazard evaluation in the region. In Chapter 3 Brückl, Carniel, Mertl, and Meurers present a beautiful example of how citizens and authorities can be involved in seismological data acquisition in Vienna, Austria. They develop innovative tools for ground motion visualization and epicentral locations. In Chapter 4, Westaway presents a compendium of the induced seismicity from nearby oil production at Newdigate, Surrey, England. He proposes a model incorporating poroelastic and fault asperities' effects into Mohr-Coulomb failure calculations.

Section 2, "Site Effects Evaluation," includes Chapters 5–7. In Chapter 5 Ito, Nakano, Senna, and Kawase propose a new method to fill the gap between observed S-wave spectral amplification factors and calculated theoretical 1D transfer functions based on a robust, strong motion database and current velocity models in Japan. Chapter 6 by Farrugia, Galea, and D'Amico focuses on unique profile soil patterns characterized by buried low-velocity layers in the Maltese Islands (Central Mediterranean), studying the dispersion of Rayleigh waves and their implication in earthquakes ground motion estimation. In Chapter 7, Ahmad, Tang, Ahmad, Hadzima-Nyarko, Nawaz, and Farooq present a critical review of the factors of soil liquefaction by applying interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and the MICMAC approach.

Section 3, "Building Foundations," includes Chapter 8 by Rostami, Mickovski, Hytiris, and Bhattacharya. In this chapter, the authors explore the pile

foundations' dynamic behavior in liquefiable soils based on robust analysis methods. Additionally, they discuss remediation techniques for earthquake resistance.

> **Walter Salazar, Ph.D.** Professor, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Catholic University of El Salvador UNICAES, Santa Ana, El Salvador

> > Section 1

Tectonics and Seismicity

Section 1
