The 6 February 1971 Tuscania (central Italy) earthquake belongs to a peculiar family of destructive seismic events that have occurred in an area classified as low‐seismic hazard, causing heavy damage and tens of casualties. However, this earthquake took place at the dawn of modern seismology in Italy and is far from being fully characterized from an instrumental and macroseismological point of view. This article aims at bridging the gap of information that affects that earthquake, through a twofold research path: (1) with an archival investigation looking for new available sources and with the use of the European Macroseismic Scale‐98 (EMS‐98) intensity scale, and (2) with the calculation of a more constrained hypocentral location. The results of this investigation can be summarized as follows: the reappraisal of the earthquake in terms of EMS‐98 provides a maximum intensity 8 in Tuscania (previously quoted 8–9 Mercalli–Cancani–Sieberg [MCS] in the catalog), and a general decrease of intensity in many damaged localities. The new epicenter location is shifted almost 10 km southeast of the old one, at about 3 km depth. This new location is more robust than the previous one and is consistent with the general distribution of the most damaged localities; however, we cannot exclude that effects of directivity might have played a role in the peculiar pattern of damage caused by the event. Finally, we provide new values of magnitude (⁠MD 4.9 and ML 5.1) that point to an upward scaling of the earthquake. The ultimate lesson of this work is that a deepening of the research can always provide room for an improvement of our knowledge even for significant earthquakes that have occurred relatively recently.

中文翻译：

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小地震神的孩子：1971年的托斯卡纳（意大利中部）“历史性”地震

1971年2月6日的托斯卡纳（意大利中部）地震属于特殊的破坏性地震事件家族，发生在被归类为低地震灾害区域，造成了严重的破坏和数十人的伤亡。但是，这次地震发生在意大利现代地震学的曙光中，从工具地震学和宏观地震学的角度来看，这还远远没有得到充分表征。本文旨在通过双重研究途径弥合影响该地震的信息鸿沟：（1）通过档案调查寻找新的可用来源，并使用欧洲宏观地震标尺-98（EMS-98）强度标尺，以及（2）计算受约束的次中心位置。该调查的结果可以总结如下：根据EMS‐98对地震进行的重新评估在托斯卡纳的最大烈度为8（以前在目录中引用为8–9 Mercalli–Cancani–Sieberg [MCS]），并且在许多受损地区，烈度普遍降低。新的震中位置从旧的向东南偏移了将近10 km，深度约为3 km。这个新地点比以前的地点更强大，并且与受灾最严重的地点的总体分布保持一致；但是，我们不能排除方向性的影响可能在事件造成的特殊损害模式中起作用。最后，我们提供了新的震级值（⁠MD 4.9和ML 5.1），表明地震的规模不断扩大。