scholarly journals Four Years of Continuous Seafloor Displacement Measurements in the Campi Flegrei Caldera

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prospero De Martino ◽  
Sergio Guardato ◽  
Gian Paolo Donnarumma ◽  
Mario Dolce ◽  
Tiziana Trombetti ◽  
...  

We present 4 years of continuous seafloor deformation measurements carried out in the Campi Flegrei caldera (Southern Italy), one of the most hazardous and populated volcanic areas in the world. The seafloor sector of the caldera has been monitored since early 2016 by the MEDUSA marine research infrastructure, consisting of four instrumented buoys installed where sea depth is less than 100 m. Each MEDUSA buoy is equipped with a cabled, seafloor module with geophysical and oceanographic sensors and a subaerial GPS station providing seafloor deformation and other environmental measures. Since April 2016, the GPS vertical displacements at the four buoys show a continuous uplift of the seafloor with cumulative measured uplift ranging between 8 and 20 cm. Despite the data being affected by environmental noise associated with sea and meteorological conditions, the horizontal GPS displacements on the buoys show a trend coherent with a radial deformation pattern. We use jointly the GPS horizontal and vertical velocities of seafloor and on-land deformations for modeling the volcanic source, finding that a spherical source fits best the GPS data. The geodetic data produced by MEDUSA has now been integrated with the data flow of other monitoring networks deployed on land at Campi Flegrei.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Marino ◽  
Luigi Ferranti ◽  
Jacopo Natale ◽  
Marco Sacchi ◽  
Marco Anzidei

<p>Appraisal of morphodepositional markers tied to ancient sea-levels in high-resolution seismic profiles together with geo-archaeological markers along the coast of the Pozzuoli Bay provided insights into the vertical deformation of the submerged part of the Campi Flegrei caldera (Southern Italy).</p><p>The collapse of the central part of the Campi Flegrei caldera is associated with the eruption of the Neapolitan Yellow Tuff (NYT) at ~15 ka. The NYT caldera collapse was followed by central dome resurgence associated with alternations of fast uplift and subsidence displacements that accompanied with discrete phases of intra-caldera volcanic activity. Previously, the evolution of ground movement in the Campi Flegrei caldera has been reconstructed using marine deposits uplifted onland or archaeological evidence and historical accounts and thus offers a mainly 2D appraisal of the deformation pattern. However, a complete reconstruction of post-collapse deformation suffers of the limitation that nearly two-thirds of the caldera are submerged beneath the Pozzuoli Bay.</p><p>We contribute to fill this gap by providing a reconstruction of offshore and coastal deformation through estimation of the vertical displacement of morphodepositional markers in high-resolution seismic reflection profiles and geoarchaeological markers directly surveyed at shallow depths. Our interpretation reveals the occurrence of different sediment stacking pattern whose provides evidence of rapid and oscillating ground movements. Whereas the offshore morphodepositional markers provide displacement information for the last ~12 ka, for the last ~2 ka our interpretation is supported by ancient Roman sea-level indicators. The multi-dataset analysis has allowed disentangling the signal related to the post-caldera dynamics from a broader deformation signal that affects this part of the extensional margin of the Apennines.</p><p>The integration of offshore data in the study of past episodes of ground deformation, by yielding a more complete picture of the ground motions associated to the post-collapse evolution of the Campi Flegrei caldera, bears a significant contribution for a 3D reconstruction of this high-risk resurgence caldera. Besides, the multidisciplinary approach presented here can be relevant for investigations of other calderas spanning the sea-land transition.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Iannaccone ◽  
Sergio Guardato ◽  
Gian Paolo Donnarumma ◽  
Prospero De Martino ◽  
Mario Dolce ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Vitale ◽  
Roberto Isaia ◽  
Jacopo Natale ◽  
Francesco D'Assisi Tramparulo

<p>We investigated the major episodes of dome growth in the Campi Flegrei caldera occurred during the last period of large eruptive activity (Epoch 3, between 5.5 and 3.5 ka), and in the historical time. The first doming event occurred at the start of Epoch 3  where the caldera floor raised for at least 100 m. Following the Plinian eruption of Agnano-Monte Spina (AMS, 4.55 ka), a new uplift phase occurred with the set up of several lava domes (e.g., Olibano, Accademia and Solfatara cryptodome), the Averno-Solfatara  (AVS, 4.3 ka) and Astroni (AST, 4.2 ka) eruptions. This unrest episode was accompanied by severe and widespread faulting and fracturing well recorded in the stratigraphic record (Vitale et al., 2019). Finally, the last episodes of doming occurred before the eruption of Monte Nuovo volcano (MN, 1538 CE) and in the last century (1950-1985 CE). The 1538 CE uplift reached a maximum vertical displacement of ca. 15 m, whereas the 1950-1985 events reached a total dislocation of ca. 4 m. In order to study the former ground deformation pattern, we reconstructed the top surface of the La Starza succession, the latter formed by marine-transitional sediments deposited between 15 and 5.5 ka deposited in large part of the caldera floor. We used information from onland well-logs and seismic profiles in the Gulf of Pozzuoli. The same approach was used for the top surface of the younger marine succession, called Pozzuoli Unit (PU) (Isaia et al., 2019), emplaced following the AMS eruption and predating the AVS eruption. Subtracting the historical deformation pattern and considering the sea-level change in that time frame, we observe that the center of vertical deformation was located, for both Top Starza and Top PU surfaces, close to the Cigliano vent, and therefore not coinciding with the 1538 CE and recent deformation center, both defined by the same deformation center located close to the town of Pozzuoli. The resulting surfaces well mark local deformations related to the activity of major faults and the minor caldera formed following the AMS Plinian eruption. The restoring of the deformation of major faults with the Okada’s fault model has furnished useful information about the amount of displacement and rates of the faults' activity in the last ca. 6 ka.</p><p>Isaia, R., Vitale, S., Marturano, A., Aiello, G., Barra, D., Ciarcia, S., Iannuzzi, E., Tramparulo, F.D.A., 2019. High-resolution geological investigations to reconstruct the long-term ground movements in the last 15 kyr at Campi Flegrei caldera (southern Italy). Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 385, 143-158. doi: 10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2019.07.012</p><p>Vitale, S., Isaia, R., Ciarcia, S., Di Giuseppe, M. G., Iannuzzi, E., Prinzi, E. P., Tramparulo, F.D’A., Troiano, A. 2019. Seismically induced soft‐sediment deformation phenomena during the volcano‐tectonic activity of Campi Flegrei caldera (southern Italy) in the last 15 kyr. Tectonics, 38(6), 1999-2018.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 108-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Troise ◽  
Giuseppe De Natale ◽  
Roberto Schiavone ◽  
Renato Somma ◽  
Roberto Moretti

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