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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.

The main aim of this work is to map Radon activity concentrations in the soil of a tectonicallyactive Mediterranean sector (Gioia Tauro Basin, Calabria, southern Italy). A total of 276 measurements have been taken at a depth of ca. 60 cm from the soil surface, using a portable ionisation chamber, according to a pre-established protocol. Measurements have been performed at the centroids of a 2.5 km square grid, and along transverse sections across the main faults. Spatial variation of 222Rn concentrations in soil gas has been modelled through a geostatistical approach, generating 200 realisations by sequential Gaussian simulation. Maps of 222Rn, of 220Rn and of ratio 222Rn / (220Rn + 222Rn) are presented. The distribution of Rn concentrations is highly asymmetrical (median: 14.5 kBq/ m3; standard dev. 22.7 kBq/m3; min: 0.06 kBq/m3; max: 137 kBq/m3). The results provide insights into the relationships with the geo-structural characteristics of the territory.

The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Italy’s primary institution for geophysics and volcanology, produces vast, heterogeneous geophysical and volcanological datasets. To enhance these assets under Open Science mandates, we implemented the INGV Data Registry: a centralized, curated metadata infrastructure. This metadata-only system is designed to decouple data description from physical storage, providing a scalable solution for distributed data environments. The Registry operates as a dynamic ecosystem that manages hundreds of records, each assigned to a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and mapped to international standards. This article examines the implementation and impact of the Registry as a critical infrastructure that supports the FAIR data principles. We demonstrate how a three-tiered validation workflow, combined with the integration of Persistent Identifiers (ORCIDs, RORs), ensures high-quality, interoperable metadata. By providing a single discovery point for INGV’s distributed data assets, the Registry offers a model for data stewardship in large research organizations, accelerating scientific discovery and decoupling data availability from traditional publication cycles. The underlying metadata dataset is publicly available and formally citable.

Long period quakes linked to Mefite D'Ansanto (Italy) mantellic CO 2 emissions. Sci Rep (2026).

This analysis of the impact of geomagnetic storms on the Thermosphere-Ionosphere system provides critical insights into the complex interplay between geomagnetic activity and the upper atmosphere dynamics. On February 3, 2022, SpaceX launched 49 Starlink satellites into orbits at altitudes ranging between 210 and 320 km. Unfortunately, 38 of these satellites were lost due to the effects of two moderate geomagnetic storms, which caused a significant increase in neutral density in the thermosphere, resulting in higher atmospheric drag. To study the impact of these geomagnetic storms on the Thermosphere-Ionosphere system, F-layer Ne(h) profiles from ground-based ionosondes, located in different longitudinal sectors of both hemispheres, along with Swarm-C neutral density observations, were analyzed using an original method called THERION (THERmospheric parameters from IONosonde observations). The analysis revealed that during the daytime in mid-latitude regions, the thermosphere exhibited relatively small neutral density perturbations of less than 50% at an altitude of 250 km. However, significant disturbances in thermospheric and ionospheric parameters were identified in the longitudinal sectors over America and Australia. In the Northern Hemisphere's winter, the largest increase in atomic oxygen [O] was revealed, ranging between 30% and 50%, which significantly contributed to the rise in neutral density at 250 km (q 250). This seasonal increase in [O] was a key factor driving the observed neutral density changes. Conversely, in the summer hemisphere, atomic oxygen [O] decreased by 20-40%, reducing its contribution to neutral density. Instead, the rise in q 250 was primarily attributed to an increase in molecular nitrogen [N 2 ], which was driven by elevated neutral temperatures (Tex) caused by the geomagnetic storms. In the Northern Hemisphere's winter, the combined effects of atomic oxygen [O] downwelling and an increase in molecular nitrogen [N 2 ], driven by higher neutral temperatures (Tex), acted in phase. This synergy resulted in a 35-45% rise in neutral density at 250 km. In contrast, during the Southern Hemisphere's summer, the opposing effects of [O] (which decreased) and [N 2 ] (which increased) largely cancelled each other out. As a result, the overall impact on q 250 was minimized, showing limited changes in neutral density. This contrast illustrates the seasonal dependence of thermospheric composition and temperature responses to geomagnetic disturbances. The European longitudinal sector exhibited behavior similar to the American longitudinal sector but with less intensity. Here, a 16-35% storm-time increase in neutral density at 250 km was primarily driven by a rise in atomic oxygen [O]. In the winter Japanese sector, neutral density perturbations were modest, with increases of less than 21%, primarily attributed to elevated neutral temperatures (Tex). These findings indicate that while the overall impact of the two February 2022 geomagnetic storms on the Thermosphere-Ionosphere system was moderate, it was significant enough to cause the loss of 38 satellites. This underscores the critical need for continuous monitoring of the thermosphere to better predict and mitigate the effects of geomagnetic activity on satellite operations.