Although the time and magnitude range covered by available seismological data is limited, several significant regional trends are outlined in the seismogenic zones of Romania. Vrancea region, which is by far the most seismically active area, has a persistent rate of occurrence of intermediate-depth earthquakes, clustered in a very confined focal volume, and a clear compressive stress regime. The deformation field, as deduced from the available fault plane solutions, is drastically reduced in the crust, where the maximum magnitude is below 6.5 (except Shabla zone, in Bulgaria). The system of major faults developed in a NW-SE direction in the Carpathians foredeep area is certainly linked to the subduction process in Vrancea, although they seem not to play a significantly active role, as could be expected for an active subduction process. The existing data indicate an extensional deformation regime over the foredeep area and Southern Carpathians, while a predominant compressive regime is outlined at the contact between the eastern margin of the Pannonian Depression and Carpathians orogen, in agreement with the bending tendency of the maximum horizontal compression orientation of the crustal stress field from NE-SW, in western and central Europe, to E -W, in the intra-Carpathian region (GRÜ NTHAL and STROMEYER, 1992).

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The seismic hazard of Romania is estimated in terms of peak-ground motion valuesdisplacement, velocity, design ground acceleration (DGA) -computing complete synthetic seismograms, which are considered to be representative of the different seismogenic and structural zones of the country. The deterministic method addresses issues largely neglected in probabilistic hazard analysis, e.g., how crustal properties affect attenuation, since the ground motion parameters are not derived from overly simplified attenuation ''functions,'' but rather from synthetic time histories. The synthesis of the hazard is divided into two parts, one that of shallow-focus earthquakes, and the other, that of intermediate-focus events of the Vrancea region.The previous hazard maps of Romania completely ignore the seismic activity in the southeastern part of the country (due to the seismic source of Shabla zone). For the Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquakes, which control the seismic hazard level over most of the territory, the comparison of the numerical results with the historically-based intensity map show significant differences. They could be due to possible structural or source properties not captured by our modeling, or to differences in the distribution of damageable buildings over the territory (meaning that future earthquakes can be more spectacularly damaging in regions other than those regions experiencing damage in the past). Since the deterministic modeling is highly sensitive to the source and path effects, it can be used to improve the seismological parameters of the historical events.

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