Osservatorio Vesuviano

Significant new information shows that the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) eruption from the Phlegrean Fields, southern Italy, was much larger than hitherto supposed and in fact one of the largest late Quaternary explosive events. The eruption can be dated to 40,000 calendar years ago, within the interval of the so-called Middle to Upper Paleolithic ‘transition’. Its position can be precisely correlated with a number of other environmental events, including Heinrich Event 4 (HE4), the Laschamp excursion, and a particular cosmogenic nuclide peak. In view of this unique combination of factors, we studied the CI volcanic catastrophe with particular attention to its impact on climate and human ecosystems, including potential interference with ongoing processes of cultural evolution (biological evolution is best left aside for the moment). The contribution of this research is chronological and ecological. The CI volcanic event provides an unequalled means of correlating stratigraphic sequences across Western Eurasia, either directly or indirectly, and affords a unique opportunity to establish the age and climatic context of important archaeological sequences. Ecologically, the CI eruption inevitably interacted with the beginning of HE4 in terms of atmospheric feedback systems. Their combined forcing produced a sudden and at least hemispheric climatic deterioration; a ‘volcanic winter’ scenario cannot be ruled out. Paleolithic occupation was severely altered throughout the direct-impact zone of the eruption and likely along fringe areas in southern and southeastern Europe. The above observations call for a reconsideration of the processes and rhythms involved in the Middle to Upper Paleolithic ‘transition’. A tentative model is suggested that links the exceptional environmental stress at 40,000 BP with processes already active in Paleolithic societies, leading to a period of accelerated change in cultural configurations. These eventually evolved into an Upper Paleolithic proper at a later date. The evidence to invoke allochthonous cultural input or invasionist scenarios is not considered compelling.

Between April 10th and May 22th 2006, a small seismic swarm of 5 volcano-tectonic events occurred on the volcanic island of Stromboli (Southern Italy). Two of these, having M > 3 and an intensity of about V-VI MCS, were clearly felt causing concern in the population. They were recorded during a period of increased explosive activity and were followed by two major explosions at the summit craters on May 22th, few hours after the last earthquake and on 16th June. The location of such events has been performed using a probabilistic approach based on the Equal Differential Time tecnique. Using this tecnique, we were able to locate all the events, showing how they cluster below the volcanic edifice at a depth of about 5 ÷ 6 km. From observed P wave polarities we determined the focal mechanisms of the 4 major events. Using earthquake scaling laws, we calculated the fault area and the average slip for the two major events. Finally, assuming an homogeneous half-space model we computed the isotropic stress changes below the volcano edifice. The negative stress variation over the central axis of the volcano suggests that the earthquakes were triggered by a pressurization of the magmatic system.

This study presents a neural-based algorithm for the automatic detection of landslides on Stromboli volcano (Italy). It has been shown that landslides are an important short-term precursor of effusive eruptions of Stromboli. In particular, an increase in the occurrence rate of landslides was observed a few hours before the beginning of the February 2007 effusive eruption. Automating the process of detection of these signals will help analysts and represents a useful tool for the monitoring of the stability of the Sciara del Fuoco flank of Stromboli volcano. A multi-layer perceptron neural network is here applied to continuously discriminate landslides from other signals recorded at Stromboli (e.g., explosion quakes, tremor signals), and its output is used by an automatic system for the detection task. To correctly represent the seismic data, coefficients are extracted from both the frequency domain, using the linear predictive coding technique, and the time domain, using temporal waveform parameterization. The network training and testing was carried out using a dataset of 537 signals, from 267 landslides and 270 records that included explosion quakes and tremor signals. The classification results were 99.5% predictive for the best net performance, and 98.7% when the performance was averaged over the different net configurations. Thus, this detection system was effective when tested on the 2007 effusive eruption period. However, continuing investigations into different time intervals are needed, to further define and optimize the algorithm.

A multi-2-D non linear traveltime tomography of the shallow (3-4 km deep) structure of Mt Vesuvius volcano was performed. Data have been collected during two recent active seismic experiments using a total of 17 on-land shots and about 140 three-component digital seismographs. A newly developed technique for imaging the volcano velocity structure has been applied, based on an adaptive model space investigation where the number of grid nodes is progressively increased (multi-scale approach). The optimal model parametrization is chosen according to the minimum of the Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) parameter. This corresponds to finding the best compromise between the data misfit and simplicity of the model. The model parameter estimate is performed through the computation of an a posteriori probability density function (pdf), defined following the Bayesian approach. The maximum likelihood model is searched by an optimization technique which combines the genetic and simplex algorithms. The evaluation of the a posteriori pdf is based on traveltime computations using ray tracing techniques. Constraints on the model parameters are inserted in the form of prior pdf and error maps are inferred from cross-sections of the posterior probability around the found best fit solution. The retrieved images of Mt Vesuvius volcano show variable P-velocities in the range 1700-5800 m s −1 . A fairly detailed image of the top of the Mesozoic carbonate rocks forming the basement of the volcanic area is obtained. A 9 km long, 1 km deep depression was detected at the N side of the volcano. The presence of a shallow high velocity body is evidenced underneath the Mt Somma caldera and it can be interpreted as a sub-or palaeovolcanic structure.

We have established a processing chain of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data for identification and parametrisation of deformation sources in areas of active ground deformation (e.g. seismogenic areas, volcanic districts). SAR data from European Space Agency (ESA) satellites ERS-2 and ENVISAT are used. SAR and InSAR data processing LEVEL 0 SAR data are focussed to Single Look Complex (SLC) through ROI_PAC (Copyright 2002-2008, Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory). We perform an advanced data processing using Doris (Kampes and Usai, 1999) a single program that can do most common steps of the interferometric radar processing starting from SLC data to generation of interferometric products and geocoding. Unwrapping of interferometric phase is performed using the public domain software snaphu (Chen and Zebker, 2001). Modeling of deformation sources We propose a novel inversion approach base on non-linear inversion. The forward modeling is provided by the semi-analytic deformation model for point sources and finite faults. The parameters of the fault (center position, width, height, rake and seismic moment) are inverted using a combination of non-linear optimization algorithms (as Monte-Carlo, Nelder&Mead Simplex and Simulated Annealing). The misfit function defined for the optimization is based on the L2 norm of the error weighted by the coherence of the considered spatial point. Test datasets To test our modeling procedure we chose three different study areas, refer to mainly strike-slip seismogenic sources with different orientation to respect satellite Line Of Sight (LOS): December 26 2003 Iranian earthquake (Bam e.), data from both ascending and descending passes of ENVISAT ASAR narrow swath IS2 (RAW and SLCs); August 17 1999 Turkey earthquake (Izmit e.), data from both ascending and descending passes of ERS-2 AMI SAR (SLCs); June 17-21 2000 Iceland earthquakes, data from both ascending and descending passes of ERS-2 AMI SAR (SLCs). Tests carried over real deformation unwrapped interferograms have shown encouraging results. Preliminary modeling of deformation sources is presented. Acknowledgements Data provided by the European Space Agency (ESA CAT-1 Project 5834, P.I. B. Massa). References Chen W., H. Zebker A. (2001) -Two-dimensional phase unwrapping with use of statistical models for cost functions in nonlinear optimization- Journal of the Optical Society of America, 18, 338-351. Kampes B., Usai S. (1999) -Doris: The Delft object-oriented Radar Interferometric software.- In: proceedings ITC 2nd ORS symposium, August 1999 (CD-ROM).

After a period of mild eruptive activity, Stromboli showed between 2017 and 2018 a reawakening phase, with an increase in the eruptive activity starting in May 2017. The alert level of the volcano was raised from “green” (base) to “yellow” (attention) on 7 December 2017, and a small lava overflowed the crater rim on 15 December 2017. Between July 2017 and August 2018 the monitoring networks recorded nine major explosions, which are a serious hazard for Stromboli because they affect the summit area, crowded by tourists. We studied the 2017–2018 eruptive phase through the analysis of multidisciplinary data comprising thermal video-camera images, seismic, geodetic and geochemical data. We focused on the major explosion mechanism analyzing the well-recorded 1 December 2017 major explosion as a case study. We found that the 2017–2018 eruptive phase is consistent with a greater gas-rich magma supply in the shallow system. Furthermore, through the analysis of the case study major explosion...

In May 2002, Stromboli–one of the two active volcanoes in the Aeolian Islands (southern Tyrrhenian sea)–entered a new phase of explosive activity, initially characterized by gas and ash emission from the summit craters. On 30 December 2002, a massive submarine landslide, followed by a subaerial one from the elevation of about 650 m above sea level (a.s.l.), detached from the submerged part of the northwest slope of Stromboli island producing a tsunami. This huge mass movement was recorded by the INGV seismic stations installed, respectively, at Stromboli and Panarea. In the following days, a working group of INGV researchers and technicians was organized in order to perform a field survey of the tsunami effects in the near-field—including all the Aeolian Islands. Meanwhile, a survey in the far-field was planned, along the coastline of Campania and Sicily, where the effects of the 30 December tsunami were observed but not directly quantified. Visible material effects of the 30 December tsunami could be observed only along the northeast coast of Stromboli island, inundated by the wave, with run-up heights locally up to several meters. Many buildings were severely damaged. On the other Aeolian Islands and in the far-field, the effects of the sea wave were documented only through eyewitness accounts. To ensure a coherent collection of these accounts, a standard interview form, based on the advice of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), was used. A databank of all observations, measurements, interview forms and photographs was compiled in order to provide a useful base to test computer simulations, hazard analyses and damage scenarios. Additional information was also made available at the EMERGEO link of INGV web pages http://www.ingv.it/emergeo and http://www.ov.ingv.it.

In this study, we analyze the recent (1990–1997) seismicity that affected the northern sector (Sannio–Benevento area) of the Southern Apennines chain. We applied the Best Estimate Method (BEM), which collapses hypocentral clouds, to the events of low energy (Md max=4.1) seismic sequences in order to constrain the location and geometry of the seismogenetic structures. The results indicate that earthquakes aligned along three main structures: two sub-parallel structures striking NW–SE (1990–1992, Benevento sequence) and one structure striking NE–SW (1997, Sannio sequence). The southernmost NW–SE structure, which dips towards NE, overlies the fault that is likely to be responsible for a larger historical earthquake (Io max=XI MCS, 1688 earthquake). The northernmost NW–SE striking structure dips towards SW. The NE–SW striking structure is sub-vertical and it is located at the northern tip of the fault segment supposed to be responsible for the 1688 earthquake. The spatio-temporal evolution of the 1990–1997 seismicity indicates a progressive migration from SE (Benevento) to NW (Sannio) associated to a deepening of hypocenters (i.e., from about 5 to 12 km). Hypocenters cluster at the interface between the major structural discontinuities (e.g., pre-existing thrust surfaces) or within higher rigidity layers (e.g., the Apulia carbonates). Available focal mechanisms from earthquakes occurred on the recognized NW–SE and NE–SW faults are consistent with dip-slip normal solutions. This evidences the occurrence of coexisting NW–SE and NE–SW extensions in Southern Apennines.

In this article the implementation and potential of the Seismotectonic Information System of the Campania Region (SISCam) are described, in particular an application of this Web-based GIS system to the seismotectonic analysis of the Sannio area (Southern Apennines) is performed. WEB-GIS technologies greatly contribute to both the environmental monitoring and the disaster management of areas affected by high natural risks. Specifically the SISCam system has been developed with the aim of providing easy access and fast diffusion, through Internet technology, of the most significant geological, geophysical, and territorial data relative to the Campania Region. The Sannio area has been selected as our application example because it is among the most active seismic regions in Italy. This portion of the Southern Apennines which was hit by the June 5, 1688 strong earthquake (M W = 6.7, CPTI 1999) and by some low- and moderate-energy seismic sequences (1990–1992, 1997), is characterized by a complex inherited tectonic setting and low-tectonic deformation rates that hide the seismogenic sources position. Since this case study turned out to be complicated, the use of the SIScam WEB-GIS has become indispensable because it allowed us to visualize, integrate and analyze all the data available, in order to obtain an accurate and direct picture of the seismotectonic setting of the area. Moreover, a different approach of data analysis was necessary, due to the lack of up-to-date neotectonic and structural data; therefore, the operation of this GIS system enabled us to process and generate some original informative layers, through image analysis, such as new structural lineaments represented on a map of the potential active faults of the area, which has been the final result of our application, as a contribution to new knowledge about the local seismic risk parameters.

The Plio-Pleistocene Campanian Plain is a structural depression of the Southern Italy located between the eastern side of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Southern Apennine chain. It is surrounded to the North, East and South by the Mesozoic carbonate massifs of the Apennine chain and, to the West, by the Tyrrhenian Sea. The graben origin is similar to other peri-Tyrrhenian regions and is related to a stretching and thinning of the continental crust by the counterclockwise rotation of the Italian peninsula and the contemporaneous opening of the Tyrrhenian sea. The consequent subsidence of the Campanian carbonate platform took place along the Tyrrhenian coast during the Plio-Pleistocene with a maximum vertical extent of 5 km. The plain is filled by volcanic and clastic, continental and marine deposits. Voluminous volcanic activity of Roccamonfina, Campi Flegrei, Ischia, Procida and Vesuvio occurred in the Plain during the Quaternary. In the middle of the plain lies the city of Naples, bordered by the two active volcanoes of Campi Flegrei and Vesuvio. It is a very densely inhabited area that is exposed to high potential volcanic risk. The stress field acting in the Campanian area is poorly known. Structural observations on the Pleistocene faults suggest normal to sinistral movements for the NW- SE-trending faults and normal to dextral for the NE-SW-trending structures. These movements are consistent with those of the structures affecting the inner margin of the Southern Apennines. The Campanian Plain is characterized by seismicity of energy lower than the seismic activity of the Southern Apennine chain. The earthquakes mainly occur along the margin of the plain, in the volcanic areas and a minor seismicity spreads out inside the Plain. The aim of this paper is an attempt to identify active, outcropping and buried fault systems of the Campanian plain through the correlation between seismicity and tectonic structures. Seismic, geologic and geomorphologic data have been analysed in GIS environment. In particular, the seismological data used in this study are relative both to the historical and recent seismic activity, collected by the following Catalogues: CPTI04 Catalogue of Parametric Italian Earthquakes, 2004 (217 b.C to 2002); CSI Catalogue of Instrumental Italian Earthquakes (1981-2002); CNT Seismic Bulletin of Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (2003-2008); Data Base of Seismic Laboratory of Osservatorio Vesuviano (Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia) (2000-2009); SisCam Catalogue (Seismotectonic Information System of the Campanian Region) (1980-2000). Seismic data were homogenized in an only one Catalogue. The seismicity of Campi Flegrei and Vesuvio volcanoes have not been studied. The Geological Dataset consists of a merge of all outcropping and buried faults extracted from the available geological and structural maps: Geological map of Italy 1:100.000; Geological map of Southern Italy 1:250.000; Neotectonic Map of Italy 1:500.000; Structural Map of Italy 1:500.000. Two main NW-SE and NE-SW active fault systems have been identified from the joined analysis of seismic epicentres and faults. Moreover, tectonic structure without correlated seismic activity and a spread seismicity, apparently not linked with already known structures (buried faults?), have been identified.

In this paper, a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) of the Ischia Island has been created, and a digital terrain analysis has been carried out to identify of morphostructural elements of this landscape. Ischia is an active volcano located in the Western sector of the Gulf of Naples that is characterized by historical and recent volcano-tectonic activity. The local kinematics is unclear, and so identification of tectonic lineaments might elucidate recent tectonic processes. We identify morphostructural features using geomorphic parameters derived from analysis of the high-resolution DEM. Successively, the comparison with known geologic features provides validation of the extracted morphotectonic data. We found that one of the main directions of the morphostructural lineaments extracted is consistent with the regional NE–SW extensional stress field; moreover, the lineaments on the northern flank of Mt. Epomeo are strictly correlated with the mapped faults that have a history of strong and moderate earthquakes. The technique implemented for this study area allowed us to identify new original morphostructural lineaments in a reproducible way that may be useful for investigating various landscapes where field survey is not possible. Indeed, the extracted lineaments represent potential active faults near the northern coast of the Ischia Island, where both seismicity and intense urbanization delineate a high seismic risk.