Papers by Francesco Zanolin
Seismological Research Letters, Sep 28, 2023
An interesting project of geothermal pilot plant, with no-gas emission in atmosphere, has been su... more An interesting project of geothermal pilot plant, with no-gas emission in atmosphere, has been submitted for approval in the medium-enthalpy geothermal field of Torre Alfina. This prompted us to develop a geochemical and geophysical monitoring of the area with the aim of establishing a background information to recognize anomalous gas emission, induced seismicity and subsidence, possibly related to the field exploitation. The exploration conducted by Enel in the years '70-'80, including the drilling of 9 deep wells, has shown the existence of a medium-enthalpy geothermal field in the Torre Alfina zone, in central Italy. The area has been affected by a very complex geological evolution during the Neogene. It was affected by the Quaternary volcanism of the Tyrrhenian margin which, reached its climax between 0.6 and 0.3 Ma. The present stress field around Quaternary volcanoes of central Italy has a NE to ENE direction of extension, in agreement with the alignment of Quaternary volcanoes and earthquake fault plane solutions, with T axes preferentially oriented between NE and ENE.
<p>In the Southern Hemisphere, the prevalence of the oceans and the difficulty of a... more <p>In the Southern Hemisphere, the prevalence of the oceans and the difficulty of access to land result in a lack of coverage of seismological station which is a strong limitation Our knowledge of the Earth’s structures and of large earthquakes sources. This is particularly critical inside the Antarctic continent where only two permanent seismological stations are currently available (QSPA and CCD). Among them, the seismological station CCD is a joint program between EOST (Strasbourg) and INGV (Roma) and is installed at the Concordia scientific base (75°S 123°E). This observatory, built in 2000 with state-of-the-art surface instrumentation installed in a vault made of snow-covered containers, meets the required quality criteria and has been part of the GEOSCOPE network since 2008. However, it has become necessary to replace this installation for safety reasons, recurring snow coverage issues and seismological performances. The existing seismic vault is deformed by the hydrostatic pressure of the snow. Its proximity to the base causes strong daytime noise (~30 dB) at high frequencies (>1 Hz); the unconsolidated layer of snow about 100m thick forms a waveguide that traps anthropogenic noise from the base. In addition, a coupling defect of the instruments in contact with the snow limits the performance at low frequencies (< 0.03 Hz) on the horizontal channels.</p><p>Eight years ago, we proposed to install a borehole seismometer at a depth of 120m to limit the waveguide effects. A new shelter on stilt and the borehole drilling were carried out in 2018/2019. The installation of all the instrumentation has been completed by our team in January 2020. The analyses of the data show that the high-frequency disturbances are very largely attenuated (-30 dB at 10 Hz) compared to the surface installation and that the horizontal channels have a lower noise level at low frequencies (-20 dB at 0.01Hz). In addition, data for all components are below the standard noise model for frequencies between 5 and 9Hz, which already makes this new station one of the quietest installations in the world for those frequencies. A few problems remain to be solved, such as atmospheric pressure-related perturbations for periods longer than 600s on the vertical component. We are currently implementing several patches to try to better insulate the borehole. Updates will be presented during the meeting. Despite this problem at long period, the new CCD borehole stations is a success with better-than-expected performances at all periods shorter than 500s. The data produced are now distributed in the world data centers as G.CCD.20.</p>
L'obiettivo più importante del progetto "S.O.I.R. monitoraggio futuro" è l'inte... more L'obiettivo più importante del progetto "S.O.I.R. monitoraggio futuro" è l'integrazione tra le Sale Operative di Roma, Napoli e Catania. Uno degli strumenti pensati all'interno del progetto per questa finalità è un sistema di videoconferenza installato nelle tre Sale Operative. Il sistema permette al personale in Sala di interagire in tempo reale e può inoltre essere utilizzato per le comunicazioni tra funzionari, responsabili INGV e Dipartimento di Protezione Civile (DPC).
Il WP1 del progetto "S.O.I.R. monitoraggio futuro" ha previsto la realizzazione di un C... more Il WP1 del progetto "S.O.I.R. monitoraggio futuro" ha previsto la realizzazione di un Cloud multi-regione al servizio delle Sale Operative. Con la progettazione e realizzazione dell'infrastruttura multi-regione ci si pone l'obiettivo di garantire la continuità operativa delle sale preposte al monitoraggio e sorveglianza h24 dell'Istituto, tra i cui compiti istituzionali principali il monitoraggio e la sorveglianza sia della sismicità sia dello stato di attività dei distretti vulcanici nel territorio nazionale, oltre che l'allerta tsunami nel Mediterraneo. Tale obiettivo è praticamente irrealizzabile senza il supporto di una infrastruttura ICT affidabile e ad alte prestazioni. Per questo motivo il prerequisito necessario alla realizzazione del Cloud al servizio delle Sale Operative è stato il miglioramento della connettività tra le sedi di Roma, Napoli e Catania, anch'esso obiettivo del WP1. Le tre Sale Operative - Osservatorio Nazionale Terremoti (ONT),...
Seismological Research Letters
The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) is an Italian research institution with... more The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) is an Italian research institution with focus on earth sciences. Moreover, the INGV is the operational center for seismic surveillance and earthquake monitoring in Italy and is a part of the civil protection system as a center of expertise on seismic, volcanic, and tsunami risks.INGV operates the Italian National Seismic Network and other networks at national scale and is a primary node of the European Integrated Data Archive for archiving and distributing strong-motion and weak-motion seismic recordings. In the control room in Rome, INGV staff performs seismic surveillance and tsunami warning services; in Catania and Naples, the control rooms are devoted to volcanic surveillance. Volcano monitoring includes locating earthquakes in the regions around the Sicilian (Etna, Eolian Islands, and Pantelleria) and the Campanian (Vesuvius, Campi Fregrei, and Ischia) active volcanoes. The tsunami warning is based on earthquake location...
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Papers by Francesco Zanolin