Multidisciplinary Investigations at Panarea (Aeolian Islands) after the Exhalative Crisis of 2002

Abstract

Panarea and surrounding Islets form a volcanic edifice, that is part of the Eastern sector of the Aeolian Arc, Southern Tyrrhenian Sea. It is now considered inactive, since last documented activity is 20 Ka old. However, on 2002-11-03, gas started to flow violently from the seafloor in an area E of the Island, mainly along NE and NW structural lineaments, and lasting up to 2003-2004 with a consistent flux, orders of magnitude larger that ’steady-state’ fumarolic activity documented there in historical times. On the same period a strong effusive activity of Stromboli (10 NM to NNE) was present. Since then, several investigations have been conducted at sea and on land, with the aim of focusing on the problem of effusive activity at sea, mainly in the light of volcanic surveillance and risk. Among these investigations, some of which have been repeated over years, we present and discuss some data and results from: (a)visual inspection and sampling by divers and ROV, (b)GPS networks and mapping by multibeam and LIDAR, (c) oceanographical measurements by current meters and CTD, and water flux and dynamics measurements, (d)magnetic and gravimetric surveys, (e) multichannel reflection Seismic with OBS and land station networks. Data were used for compilation of high resolution bathymetric, magnetic and gravimetric maps, including the emerged and submerged portions of the edifice.