Reconstructing fallout features and dispersal of Cretaio Tephra (Ischia Island, Italy) through field data analysis and numerical modelling: Implications for hazard assessment

Abstract

The magnitude and intensity of the 60 CE Cretaio Tephra, the largest historical explosive eruption at Ischia caldera (Italy), was studied integrating field data and numerical modelling in order to reconstruct the dispersal of the fall out related to the climax phase of the eruption and characterize its physical parameters. A field survey of the main fall unit (EUC) of Cretaio Tephra and its sampling was performed on the island, which is the proximal area of dispersal, and for the first time outcrops of this tephra were found southward on the Capri Island. The dataset is completed by a distal tephra sampled in the offshore and described in the literature, allowing the analysis of samples of intermediate and distal deposits. Grain size analysis of the samples collected on the island show bimodal distributions due to the presence of a ballistic component, especially in the most proximal sampling sites around the inferred and buried vent. Tails of fine ash in the distributions can be associ ated with settling enhanced by ash aggregation processes in the moisture-rich plume. Tephra dispersal was re constructed using the HAZMAP tephra dispersal model by minimizing the difference between the simulations obtained exploring plausible ranges of eruption source parameters and the available thickness and grain-size measurements. Results show that the dispersal axis of EUC is to the south-southeast, the best guess for the total erupted volume of tephra is 0.075 km3 , the plume height ranges between 5 and 13 km, for an average mass eruption rate (MER) of 105 kg/s, hence a duration of the eruption of a few days. Considering an eruptive sce nario given by the eruption parameters and diffusion coefficient of the Cretaio Tephra, together with a statistical set of wind profiles, HAZMAP modelling allowed us to generate tephra loading probability maps, needed to assess the impact of such an eruption at Ischia Island and the Neapolitan metropolitan area, pivotal for civil protection purposes. Another important outcome of the study is that, for volcanic islands, the reconstruction of eruption parameters may benefit much more from the search of even few medial and distal offshore outcrops than from implementing the on-island proximal dataset only.