Seismically induced liquefaction structures in La Magdalena archaeological site, the 4th century AD Roman Complutum (Madrid, Spain)

The ancient Roman city of Complutum(Alcalá deHenares,Madrid), founded in the 1st century AD,was one of the most important cities ofHispania. The old Roman citywas destroyed, abruptly abandoned, relocated close by and rebuilt during the late 4th century AD. Destruction of the city and its relocation...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Rodríguez-Pascua, M. A., Silva Barroso, Pablo Gabriel, Perucha Atienza, M. Ángeles, Giner-Robles, Jorge L., Heras, C., Bastida, A.B., Carrasco García, Pedro, Roquero García-Casal, E., Lario, Javier, Bardají, Teresa, Pérez López, Raúl, Elez, Javier
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/277035
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/277035
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sedgeo.2016.01.025
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Complutum
Earthquake
Liquefaction
Earthquake Archaeological Effects
4th century AD
Descripción
Sumario:The ancient Roman city of Complutum(Alcalá deHenares,Madrid), founded in the 1st century AD,was one of the most important cities ofHispania. The old Roman citywas destroyed, abruptly abandoned, relocated close by and rebuilt during the late 4th century AD. Destruction of the city and its relocation has not yet been explained by archaeologists. In this paper,with ourmultidisciplinary approach, we identify and characterize earthquake archaeological effects (EAEs) affecting the archaeological site, the La Magdalena, an agricultural holding 4 km from the core of Complutum. The most important EAEs in the site are liquefactions (sand dikes and explosive sand-gravel craters) affecting Roman structures, such as water tanks (cisterns), houses and graves. Ground liquefaction generated significant ground cracks, explosive craters and folds in foundations of buildings. Several other Roman sites throughout the valleywere also abandoned abruptly during the 4th century AD, in some caseswith EAEs of similar origin. This suggests the occurrence of a 5.0–6.6 Mw seismic event in the zone, in accordance with the minimum empirical limit of seismically-induced liquefaction and the maximum surface rupture length of the Henares fault.