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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.

Nel laboratorio di geofisica ambientale dell'Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia è stato progettato e realizzato il prototipo di una ionosonda a bassa potenza a compressione di impulsi secondo i dettami della moderna tecnica radaristica. Si è puntato sulla realizzazione di una macchina a bassa potenza e dal costo contenuto con possibilità di costituire una rete di ionosonde per scopi di sorveglianza ionosferica. Il sistema con una potenza di 200W consente di investigare la ionosfera da 90 a 700km con una risoluzione verticale di 5km in un range di frequenza da 1 a 20MHz.

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.

This study presents magnetic anomaly data from a new high-resolution, low-altitude helicopter-borne magnetic survey recently collected on and offshore Tenerife in the Canary Archipelago. The Italian Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales of the CSIC of Spain conducted the survey in 2006. The data for Tenerife and surrounding marine areas were processed into digital total intensity magnetic anomalies for geomagnetic epoch 2006.4. Relative to previously available higher altitude magnetic survey data, the new survey mapped higher resolution anomalies with significantly improved spatial details, especially over the Las Cañadas caldera and Teide-Pico Viejo complex in the central part of the island. A good correlation is evident between known structural geology and the magnetic anomalies, where the new shorter wavelength anomalies facilitate more detailed and comprehensive geologic interpretations.

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.

The Irpinia Fault, also known as the Monte Marzano Fault System, located in the Southern Apennines (Italy), is one of the most seismically active structures in the Mediterranean. It is the source of the 1980, Ms 6.9, multi-segment rupture earthquake that caused significant damage and nearly 3,000 casualties. Paleoseismological surveys indicate that this structure has generated at least four Mw ~ 7 surface-rupturing earthquakes in the past 2 ka. This paper presents a comprehensive, high-resolution geophysical investigation focused on the southernmost fault segment of the Monte Marzano Fault System, i.e., the Pantano-Ripa Rossa Fault, outcropping within the Pantano di San Gregorio Magno intramontane basin. The project, named TEst Site IRpinia fAult (TESIRA), was supported by the University of Napoli Federico II to study the near-surface structure of this intra-basin fault splay that repeatedly ruptured co-seismically in the past thousands of years. Our imaging approach included 2D and 3D electrical and seismic surveys, gravimetry, 3D FullWaver electrical tomography, drone-borne GPR and magnetic surveys, and CO2 soil flux assessment across the surface rupture. This multidisciplinary investigation improved our understanding of the basin shallow structure, providing an image of a rather complex subsurface fault and basin geometry. Seismic data suggest that fault activity at the Pantano segment of MMFS is characterized by a near-surface cumulative displacement greater than previous estimations, calling into question earlier assumptions about the timing of its activation. Despite some challenges with our drone-mounted survey equipment, the integrated dataset provides a comprehensive and reliable image of the subsurface structure. This work demonstrates the utility of developing an integrated approach at high-resolution geophysical imaging and interpretation of fault zones with weak morphological expressions.

Mexico has five high-temperature geothermal fields, three of which are located in an active volcanic arc known as the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt in central Mexico. In this geological province, there are numerous hot springs, many of which have not been studied yet. It is the case of the Rancho Nuevo area, which is composed of two hot springs and thermal groundwater wells. The present study focuses on the hydrogeochemical and isotopic characterization of the Rancho Nuevo geothermal system. According to the results cationic exchange, silicates and carbonates rock alteration processes are occurring. A cooling of thermal water is also carried out caused by a mixing process between deep Na-Cl type water and shallow Na-HCO3. In addition, the most relevant process identified in the study area is the water-rock interaction and corroborated by the stable isotope results showing enrichment of δ18O. All these processes are enhanced by the thermal activity in the region. The CO2 and N2 concentrations confirm the geothermal activity in the Rancho Nuevo area. The CH4 concentration is also typical of geothermal fluids and may represent a magma degassing. Finally, the reservoir temperature was estimated at 225 °C ± 15 °C based on silica, cation, and integrated multicomponent solute geothermometers. Therefore, the Rancho Nuevo geothermal area can be defined as a high-temperature system and as a very interesting prospect; however, for geothermal resource production, the calcium carbonate deposition in the wells shall be considered.

Crustal perturbations related to seismic activity can generally be observed with the occurrence of a large magnitude event. For less energetic seismic sequences though, the associated transient crustal variations are questionably measurable, and their observation gets easily obscured by relatively stronger perturbations such as the ones related to hydrological processes. In this study we reveal the significant role that terrestrial water‐storage variations play in governing temporal crustal changes in the tectonically active Northern Apennines of Italy, and discuss the potential of accounting for its correction in order to monitor the relatively weaker transient perturbations caused by local seismic swarms. This area is characterized by an extensive level of low‐energetic seismic activity, typically clustered in time and space, of which three main seismic swarms outstand during the 12 year period of study (2010–2021). Our analysis compares independent observations and processing methods of Global Navigation Satellite System measurements and ambient seismic noise recordings. We adopt a multivariate statistical approach to discriminate between independent sources of ground deformation, and seismic noise cross‐correlation analysis to monitor relative seismic‐velocity variations. The result shows how the perturbation effects produced by variations in total water content are dominant in both time series of ground deformations and seismic‐velocity variations. After correcting for the water‐related variation effects, our monitoring results reveal perturbations in the crustal properties whose activation time and depth range correlate with the occurrences of the seismic swarms.

A wide-ranging overview on the ground uplift and seismic activity during the 1969-1972, 1982-1984, and 2005-ongoing unrest episodes at Campi Flegrei caldera is delivered using data reported in literature and those contained in the OV-INGV databases and surveillance reports. In this study, an attempt to correlate the increase of the ground uplift rate and the occurrence of seismic events with M ≥ 1.5 is made also by reporting some general features on the ground deformations and seismic activity of the 1969-1972 and 1982 1984 unrest episodes. The original graphs, created to compare the ground uplift with the seismic activity, highlight that the increment of the seismic activity, both in number but especially in magnitude, occurs when in the presence of an increment of the ground uplift rate. This feature appears to be common to both the large uplift episodes (1969 1972, 1982-1984, and 2005-ongoing) and the mini-uplift ones (e.g. 2000). Based on our observations on the occurrence of the seismic events with M ≥ 3.5, we hypothesise that, following an uplift rate of approximately 5 mm/day for a few days, seismic events with M ≥ 4.5 may occur. Under such hypothesis, also considering the approximate migration of the epicentres of the seismic events with M ≥ 2.5 of the ongoing unrest, we believe that a reassessment of the seismic hazard for the area of Campi Flegrei could be useful.