New research led by the University of Padua unveils through the Seismic tomography How the magmatic system works under the most active volcano in Europe. And opens new perspectives for providing eruptions and for the understanding of deep geological processes
In the fiery belly of Monte EtnaThe Sicilian giant who has already dominated the landscape and imagination of the Mediterranean Millennia is hidden from millennia, a complex network of fractures and channels that are invisible to the eyes, but essential to understand the behavior of the volcano.
Shed new light on this complicated system is an innovative study published in the magazine Communication earth and surroundingsThe result of the work of a research team coordinated by theUniversity of Padua.
Using an unprecedented technique of Anisotrope Seismic TomographyThe researchers analyzed more than 37 thousand seismic signals that were recorded between 2006 and 2016, so that some kind of a kind of “Tac” Geological volcano: the waves of earthquakes are used instead of X series.
The results tell a story of magma under pressure, of fractures that open in depth and a system that, like a perfectly orchestrated machine, leads the magmatic material to the surface.
A Radial Dicchi System: The Magma highways
The study, among other things signed from Gianmarco del Piccolo one Manual factory from the Geosciences department from the University of Paduan, the presence under the Etna of a radial network of dicum – Vertical fractures filled with solidified magma – which extends between 6 and 16 kilometers depth.
These structures act as preferential channels that guide the climb of magma and explain why the eruptions not only take place from the top craters, but also by lateral mouths, often suddenly and spectacular.
The behavior of the seismic waves – faster in certain directions, slower in others – has made it possible to estimate with precision tension In the crust of the earth. It is precisely this stress that accumulates energy to break the rocks, which makes the creation of the saying and the passage of magma possible.
“The stress status influences a wide variety of geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but it still remains a great unknown in many crust excits,” Del Piccolo explains. “Our study opens the road to a new generation of predictive models based on real seismic data.”
Seismic Tomography: a key to the future of geophysics
The value of the study does not stop understanding ETNA. The developed method – a probabilistic approach based on the anisotropy of P waves – can also be used in other complex geological contexts: from geothermal fields to oil deposits, to areas with a high seismic risk.
“We believe that this approach can cause a revolution in our ability to predict the behavior of magma and liquids in a profound way,” The professor’s fact has underlined. “But above all it enables us to estimate the uncertainty of our interpretations: an essential step to build models that are really useful for the protection of people and the territory”.
Seismic Tomography and Etna as a natural laboratory
With this work, Mount Etna is not only confirmed as a miracle of nature and a challenge for those who live on the slopes, but also as a formidable open -Air scientific laboratory. Thanks to the enormous amount of seismic data collected in recent decades and the continuous activity, Etna is one of the most studied volcanoes in the world – and now more than ever one of the most comprehensible.
Insight into the subsurface, in an era that is characterized by climate change and the growing vulnerability of human communities, has never been so urgent. Magma speaks to us, even without bursting. It is up to us, thanks to science, to learn to listen to it.