Reply to 'Comments on the paper 'Are the source models of the M 7.1 1908 Messina Straits earthquake reliable? Insights from a novel inversion and sensitivity analysis of levelling data' by Aloisi et al. (2012)'

We reply to the comments of De Natale and Pino (2013) on the paper ‘Are the source models of the M 7.1 1908 Messina Straits earthquake reliable? Insights from a novel inversion and sensitivity analysis of levelling data’ by Aloisi et al. (2012, Geophys. J. Int. , 192 , 1025–1041). We entirely reject their speculative comments and confirm our viewpoint about the impossibility of discriminating between the two oppositely dipping fault models on the basis of the levelling data alone; we state again that their role as a keystone for modellers is untenable. The comments of De Natale and Pino (2013) are welcomed insofar they give us the possibility to improve our previous analysis, and to criticize the mainstream hypothesis favouring to a low-angle East dipping fault in the Sicilian side of the Messina Straits as responsible of the 1908 destructive earthquake.