Ljubljana Basin is the most densely populated, highly urbanised and economically the highest developed part of Slovenia, experiencing moderate seismic activity with the strongest historical earthquake in 1895, M 6.1, Imax VIII-IX EMS-98, that devastated Ljubljana. Despite the recognised seismic risk faults capable of producing strong magnitude earthquakes are poorly known. This doctoral dissertation presents an investigation of active faults in the Ljubljana Basin using the approach of tectonic geomorphology. Active faults were identified with regional-scale geomorphologic mapping using remote sensing data. The right-lateral strike-slip Sava fault and reverse Vodice fault were investigated in detail with geomorphologic analysis of spatial topographic data and field survey. Study of these faults was focused on describing geomorphic indicators of activity, determining the fault kinematics, geometry and segmentation and on estimating offsets and ages of geomorphic markers. The obtained data alowed us to quantitatively constrain the Quaternary activity of Sava and Vodice faults. Furthermore, their seismogenic potential was estimated based on geometric type of segmentation using scaling laws. The results of this work and an extensive review of all available data enabled us to propose a structural and seismotectonic model of the Ljubljana Basin,
explaining the kinematics of active faults, structural evolution of the basin and to give new insights on seismic hazard of this region.
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