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A digital low power pulse compressed ionosonde was developed at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Rome, Italy. The aim of this Advanced Ionospheric Sounder, AIS-INGV, is to reduce the transmitted power and, consequently, weight, size, power consumption and hardware complexity. To compensate the power reduction the most advanced HF radar techniques such as the pulse compression and a phase coherent integration are used. The ionosonde is completely programmable and a PC supports the data acquisition, control, storage and on-line processing. The first prototype was installed at Gibilmanna Ionospheric Observatory (Sicily), an interesting location in the center of Mediterranean area. The new ionosonde will contribute to ionospheric database and real time knowledge of South European ionospheric conditions for space weather applications. In this work the first results (ionograms and autoscaled characteristics) are presented and briefly discussed.

A new digital ionosonde called AIS-INGV (Advanced Ionospheric Sounder) was designed both for research and for routine service of HF radio wave propagation forecast. Nearly the entire system was developed in the Laboratorio di Geofisica Ambientale at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Rome. It exploits advanced techniques for signal analysis, recent technological devices and PC resources. This paper describes design concepts and performance of the new ionosonde.

The Italian Ionospheric Antarctic Observatory of Terra Nova Bay (74.70S, 164.11E) was recently equipped with the AIS-INGV ionosonde developed at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Rome, (Italy). This paper aims to describe briefly which are the main characteristics of the instrument and show the good quality and reliability of the recorded ionograms.

The ionosonde is a system which exploits the radar technique: it applies electromagnetic waves with variable frequency in the HF band to measure the ionospheric layers electron density, height and other parameters. This paper is a technical report on the new digital ionosonde (AIS-INGV), which was designed both for research purposes and for the routine service of the HF radiowave propagation forecast. It has been developed almost completely within the Laboratorio di Geofisica Ambientale (LGA) at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). It exploits advanced techniques for the signal analysis, recent technological devices and PC resources. The report is divided into two parts; the first is a general description of the design development, the second is a more detailed description of the blocks and circuits actually built and tested, directed to a specialist reader.

www.earth-prints.org aims to satisfy the increasing demand of fast, up-to-date, easy-accessible, and free-of-charge sources of information in all branches of Geosciences. It allows earth scientists to deposit electronic documents into its collections and to index them by subjects and keywords. Earth-prints provides a time-stamp to all deposited materials to insure precedence rights to original ideas and scientific results. It deals with copyright issues through Creative Common standards that offer a wide variety of licenses. All deposited material is made immediately available to the public. Subscribers will be sent a daily newsletter according to the topics they have signed in. The archive has a three-level hierarchical structure. The top level includes Atmosphere, Cryosphere, Hydrosphere, Solid Earth, and General. It then branches into several disciplines within the other two levels. Different collections take in different kinds of material, such as pre-prints, oral presentations, extended abstracts, published papers, conference papers, books and book chapters, posters, and Web products and databases. Earth-Prints main language is English but it accepts documents in other languages also, giving visibility to data and studies at local scale that are indeed of general interests. An abstract in English is always required. We will present a virtual tour into the many features of Earth-prints to provide all its potential users with an easy acquaintance of the system and make them explore its capabilities. Although the archive is based on latest information technology it requires no specific knowledge to be used because it manages all procedures for access, navigation, upload of documents and information retrieval through a user-friendly interface. What is the limit of open archive development? We think that the one and only limit of open archives is the eagerness of its users to share information and knowledge.

We set up a computational tool to numerically model static and quasi-static deformation generated by faulting sources embedded in plane or spherical domains. We use a Finite Element (FE) approach to automatically implement arbitrary faulting sources and calculate displacement and stress fields induced by slip on the fault. The package makes use of the capabilities of CalculiX, a non commercial FE software designed to solve field problems (see for details), and is freely distributed by request.

This book contains the proceedings of the 1st WSEAS International Conference on Environmental and Geological Science and Engineering (EG'08) which was held in Malta, September 11-13, 2008. This conference aims to disseminate the latest research and applications in Renewable Energy, Mineral Resources, Natural Hazards and Risks, Environmental Impact Assessment, Urban and Regional Planning Issues, Remote Sensing and GIS, and other relevant topics and applications. The friendliness and openness of the WSEAS conferences, adds to their ability to grow by constantly attracting young researchers. The WSEAS Conferences attract a large number of well-established and leading researchers in various areas of Science and Engineering as you can see from http://www.wseas.org/reports. Your feedback encourages the society to go ahead as you can see in http://www.worldses.org/feedback.htm The contents of this Book are also published in the CD-ROM Proceedings of the Conference. Both will be sent to the WSEAS collaborating indices after the conference: www.worldses.org/indexes In addition, papers of this book are permanently available to all the scientific community via the WSEAS E-Library. Expanded and enhanced versions of papers published in this conference proceedings are also going to be considered for possible publication in one of the WSEAS journals that participate in the major International Scientific Indices (Elsevier, Scopus, EI, ACM, Compendex, INSPEC, CSA .... see: www.worldses.org/indexes) these papers must be of high-quality (break-through work) and a new round of a very strict review will follow. (No additional fee will be required for the publication of the extended version in a journal). WSEAS has also collaboration with several other international publishers and all these excellent papers of this volume could be further improved, could be extended and could be enhanced for possible additional evaluation in one of the editions of these international publishers. Finally, we cordially thank all the people of WSEAS for their efforts to maintain the high scientific level of conferences, proceedings and journals.

The historical sources of large and moderate earthquakes, earthquake catalogues and monographs exist in many depositories in Syria and European centers. They have been studied, and the detailed review and analysis resulted in a catalogue with 181 historical earthquakes from 1365 B.C. to 1900 A.D. Numerous original documents in Arabic, Latin, Byzantine and Assyrian allowed us to identify seismic events not mentioned in previous works. In particular, detailed descriptions of damage in Arabic sources provided quantitative information necessary to re-evaluate past seismic events. These large earthquakes (I0>VIII) caused considerable damage in cities, towns and villages located along the northern section of the Dead Sea fault system. Fewer large events also occurred along the Palmyra, Ar-Rassafeh and the Euphrates faults in Eastern Syria. Descriptions in original sources document foreshocks, aftershocks, fault ruptures, liquefaction, landslides, tsunamis, fires and other damages. We present here an updated historical catalogue of 181 historical earthquakes distributed in 4 categories regarding the originality and other considerations, we also present a table of the parametric catalogue of 36 historical earthquakes (table I) and a table of the complete list of all historical earthquakes (181 events) with the affected locality names and parameters of information quality and completeness (table II) using methods already applied in other regions (Italy, England, Iran, Russia) with a completeness test using EMS-92. This test suggests that the catalogue is relatively complete for magnitudes >6.5. This catalogue may contribute to a comprehensive and unified parametric earthquake catalogue and to a realistic assessment of seismic hazards in Syria and surrounding regions.

Numerical models are widely used to simulate volcanic gas dispersion and estimate local emission sources. How- ever, significant uncertainties arise from the approximations inherent in their physical formulations. Recent advances in high-performance computing (HPC) have enabled high-resolution simulations with minimal numerical diffusion, revealing previously unnoticed limitations in the Monin–Obukhov Similarity Theory used within atmospheric gas dispersion models. One key issue is the determination of the minimum vertical turbulence diffusion coefficient ­ (Kzmin) in the atmospheric surface layer (ASL), which plays a crucial role in reducing biases in advection–diffusion models caused by inadequate turbulence representation. In this study, we refine the Eulerian passive gas transport model DISGAS (v. 2.5.1) using measured data on fumarolic and diffuse CO₂ fluxes and air concentrations, along with local wind measurements collected during an ad hoc field campaign from 4 to 10 May 2023. To account for uncertainties in gas flow rates and turbulent velocity fluctuations, we conducted a statistically robust set of simulations by varying CO₂ fluxes and Kzmin values. Model outputs were compared with in situ CO₂ concentration measurements at fixed monitoring stations. Results indicate that during stable atmospheric conditions, setting ­ Kzmin within the range of 1.5–2 m2 s−1 significantly improves agreement with observations and reduces systematic biases in source esti- mation. These findings refine model parameterization to better represent turbulence under stable atmospheric conditions at La Solfatara crater during the May 2023 survey. Moreover, the proposed methodology can be adopted for automated data assimilation workflows aimed at constraining unknown fumarolic gas source fluxes in other vol- canic settings.

Barva is an andesitic shield volcano located 23 km north of San Jos´ e (the capital of Costa Rica) and is the only eruptive center near the capital that until now, has no record of historical eruptions. Recent mapping around the summit indicates that at least eight explosive events (VEI 0–3) have occurred in the last 13 kyr. In the last 25 kyr, eruption of several summit and flank lava flows, and cones with basaltic andesite to andesitic composition were interspersed with prolonged dormancy periods. The most important and well-known lava field (12.8 km2) erupted from the basaltic andesitic Monte de la Cruz cinder cone about 17 kyr on the South-southwest flank. The explosive deposits confined to the summit area (within a radius of 10 km around the highest cones at 2906 m a.s. l.) range from a lower tephra fall deposit layer dated at ~13,300 yr BP (from Guararí cone) to the most recent strombolian event around ~250 yr BP (ca. 1700 CE) from Ur´ as cone. During the Holocene, the volcano has experienced at least one subplinian (≥6 ×106 m3 DRE) and one strombolian eruption (~3 ×106 m3 DRE), with frequent eruptions whose deposits are consistent with the vulcanian style (between ~2 ×106 and ~3.1 ×106 m3 DRE) originating from several small cones and craters at the summit. Periods of dormancy vary between ~750 and ~3820 yr, with approximately 325 yr of quiescence since the last small-volume eruption for which there are no written records due the low population density during the middle of the seventeenth century and its normal cloudy conditions. Results of our radiometric and field data analysis indicate that if explosions similar to those that happened in the past 13 kyr occur in the coming centuries, there could be an impact on the towns near the volcano (about 1200 people), mainly due to pyroclastic flows, ashfall and gas dispersion, while at the country level, the main impact would be due to the dispersion and ashfall.

A violent undersea explosive eruption occurred at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano on 15 January 2022, generating an eruption cloud more intense than any previously observed. We performed numerical simulations of eruption cloud dynamics using a 3D fluid-dynamic model and an ensemble-based tephra dispersal inversion model to reconstruct the eruption's climactic phase and compare it with available observations. Our results reveal that during this phase, 190-1500 Tg of seawater interacted with magma, producing a mass flow rate of the eruptive magmatic mixture of 3.2-6.3 × 10⁹ kg s −1 , which is several times more intense than the 1991 Pinatubo eruption. Moreover, we show that the eruption cloud, which injected approximately 1 Tg of volcanic ash and 0.1 Tg of seawater into the mesosphere, was in a state of thermal disequilibrium with the surrounding environment. The eruption injected 0.3-11 Tg sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. These results suggest that a substantial amount of magmatic material, water vapor, and sulfur dioxide was injected into the stratosphere and mesosphere during this eruption, which could have a significant impact on the global climate several years after the eruption. Our work also shows the importance of high-resolution simulations in capturing the complex dynamics of eruption plumes generated by undersea volcanic eruptions, leading to more accurate predictions of eruption impacts.

Volcanic activity can cause severe damage to buildings, transport networks, ecosystems, and critical infrastructure, making quantitative approaches that integrate hazard, exposure, and vulnerability essential for informed decisionmaking. This study introduces the Volcanic Risk Metric (VRM), a systematic framework for volcanic risk quantification, aligned with the National Guide for Risk Analysis and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and applies it to La Florida Municipality, Colombia, part of which lies within the highhazard zone of Galeras Volcano. Probabilistic hazard curves were generated for each pixel of a digital elevation model and combined with vulnerability curves tailored to buildings, road networks, and ecosystems. For each hazard-asset pair, a risk curve was calculated and multiplied by the replacement cost of the asset to estimate expected physical loss. By identifying, for each pixel, the maximum risk value among all hazards, an integrated volcanic risk map was developed, highlighting zones of greatest expected loss, particularly in areas with dense infrastructure and population within the volcano's high-hazard zone. This map provides valuable information for planning, mitigation, and emergency response in La Florida Municipality, and the VRM approach is transferable to other volcanic regions, offering a practical tool for risk-informed land-use planning and enhancing disaster resilience.