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Vezzoli, Luigina
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Vezzoli, Luigina
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- PublicationRestrictedMonte Amiata volcano (Tuscany, Italy) in the history of volcanology, part 1: its role in the debates on extinct volcanoes, sources of magma, and eruptive mechanisms (1733–1935)(2020)
; ; ; A review of the main contributions to the scientific literature between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries concerning the geology and volcanology of Monte Amiata volcano (Tuscany, central Italy) is presented. Monte Amiata, and the nearby volcano of Radicofani, are of great interest for the history of volcanology because they have the primacy of being the first to be recognized of volcanic origin in a region (Tuscany) which was not volcanically active, thirty years before Guettard’s studies on the Auvergne region in France. Indeed, the Florentine botanist Pier Antonio Micheli identified as extinct volcanoes Radicofani in 1722 and Monte Amiata in 1733. Moreover, the merit of Micheli's work resides in interpreting Monte Amiata as an extinct volcano despite the absence of a conventional cone-shaped volcano morphology, and in his recognizing its rocks as lavas despite their marked differences to those produced by the known active volcanoes of its times, such as the iconic Vesuvius. During the eighteenth century and until the first half of the nineteenth century, Monte Amiata was a destination for scientific journeys by Tuscan and foreign scholars (e.g. Micheli, Baldassarri, Arduino, Fortis, Ferber, Dolomieu, Santi, Repetti, Hoffmann). In addition, its rocks were part of important collections throughout Europe visited by illustrious mineralogists. Furthermore, samples from Monte Amiata were used to illustrate the general discussions on the nature and origin of rocks such as basalt and granite. In the nineteenth century, Monte Amiata was included in the lists of known volcanoes recorded in the early treatises on volcanology made by Scrope, Daubeny, and Hoffmann, and its 'trachyte' was the subject of early essays on microscope petrography and chemical analysis of rocks, performed by vom Rath, Rosenbusch, Williams, Lacroix, and Washington. Between the end of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century, the volcano geologists of the Comitato Geologico Italiano, especially Verri, Lotti, and Sabatini, carried out field-surveys on Monte Amiata resulting in geological maps and volcano-stratigraphies. Moreover, modern petrographic (Novarese, Artini, Rodolico) and geographical (Dainelli and Olinto Marinelli) scientific studies were carried out on this volcano. Nevertheless, up to the middle part of the twentieth century, the major interest in Monte Amiata was related not to its volcanological aspects but to its natural resources: drinking waters, diatomaceous earths, earth pigments, and mercury ore-minerals.60 3 - PublicationRestrictedDeciphering textural and chemical zoning of K-feldspar megacrysts from Mt. Amiata Volcano (Southern Tuscany, Italy): Insights into the petrogenesis and abnormal crystal growthThis study reports the complex textural and chemical features of K-feldspar megacrysts (up to 5 cm long) hosted in trachydacitic lava flows, lava domes, and coulées from Mt. Amiata volcano (Tuscan Magmatic Province, Central Italy). Backscattering and cathodoluminescence imaging, coupled with core to rim major and trace elements patterns, reveal a complex zoning, and resorption surfaces associated with sharp chemical variations (e.g., Sr and Ba). These zoning patterns originated by disequilibrium and re-equilibration events, related to the repetitive influx of mafic magmas or convective motions in the trachydacitic magma reservoir. Multiple mafic magma refilling events are also supported by the field occurrence of abundant microgranular magmatic enclaves in the studied products. Our results highlight that the abnormal dimension of the studied K-feldspars originates by the interplay between petrological and kinetic processes involving: (i) extensive dissolution; (ii) heterogeneous nucleation; (iii) alternation of spasmodic growth events in disequilibrium and near-equilibrium crystallization. Repetitive influx of hotter magmas and reheating can determine the thermal condition to the growth of few, large K-felspar megacrysts. Also, the strong textural and chemical similarities observed in the K-feldspar megacrysts from Mt. Amiata volcanic rocks and Mt. Capanne monzogranite (Elba Island, Central Italy) support the hypothesis of a phenocrystic origin of intrusive K-feldspar megacrysts.
167 5 - PublicationOpen AccessThe 2017, MD = 4.0, Casamicciola Earthquake: ESI-07 Scale Evaluation and Implications for the Source Model(2021-01-22)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; On 21 August 2017 at 20:57 (local time) a very shallow (H = 1.2 km), moderate (Md = 4.0), earthquake hit the volcanic island of Ischia (Southern Italy), causing the death of two people. The study of the damage to the buildings with the European Macroseismic Scale 98 (EMS-98), carried out immediately after the earthquake, highlighted that hilly area of Casamicciola Terme, on the northern side of the Mt. Epomeo, was the most damaged part of the island with locally quite relevant damage (I = VIII EMS). This seismic event is the first damaging earthquake in Ischia during the instrumental era. In fact, this provides, for the first time, the opportunity to integrate historical seismicity, macroseismic observations, instrumental information, and detailed mapping of the geological coseismic effects. In this work we evaluate the effects induced by the 2017 Casamicciola earthquake on the environment using the Environmental Seismic Intensity 2007 (ESI-07) macroseismic scale. This macroseismic analysis, together with the superficial coseismic faulting characteristics and the available geophysical information, allows us to reconsider the source model for the 2017 earthquake and the previous damaging historical earthquakes in the Casamicciola Terme area. The application of the ESI scale to the Casamicciola Terme earthquake of 21 August 2017 and the assignment of seismic intensity offers better spatial resolution, as well as an increase of the time window for the assessment of the seismic hazard, allowing to reduce the implicit uncertainty in the intensity attenuation laws in this peculiar volcano-tectonic setting. Since intensity is linked to the direct measure of damage, and it is commonly used in hazard assessment, we argue that building damage at Casamicciola Terme is strongly influenced by earthquake surface faulting and near field effects, and therefore controlled by the geometry of the seismic source.795 47 - PublicationRestrictedMonte Amiata volcano (Tuscany, Italy) in the history of volcanology: 2—its role in the definition of “ignimbrite” concepts and in the development of the “rheoignimbrite” model of Alfred RittmannThe explosive eruptions that occurred between nineteenth and twentieth centuries produced a fundamental cultural impact on the development of Volcanology. Pyroclastic products and ignimbrites features start to be at the base of an international debate. Various descriptions of explosive eruptions, and a new terminology of their products, such as nuée ardente and ignimbrite, were presented and extensively discussed in the framework of the International Association of Volcanology conferences held in 1961 at Catania and in 1963 at Tokyo. Ignimbrite deposits are frst assimilated to welded tufs. That attention to explosive volcanism of the frst half of the twentieth century was the context in which has matured the Alfred Rittmann model of rheoignimbrite as welded ignimbrite showing secondary fowage structures. This term introduced by Rittmann in 1958, and shared by Giorgio Marinelli in 1961, was intended to describe the extensive sheet of acidic vitrophyric volcanic rocks of Monte Amiata volcano, interpreted as lava fows by all previous authors. Rheomorphic ignimbrites, in the Rittmann model, have features that strongly diferentiate them from normal ignimbrites and that are very similar to what shown by acidic lava fows, as fuidal structures and wrinkles. The concept of rheomorphic ignimbrite is still in use into the volcanological literature, even if not for the Monte Amiata volcanics, nowadays defnitively considered to be lava fows and domes. However, the Rittmann and Marinelli authoritative assumptions inhibited, up to present times, new volcanological interpretation of Monte Amiata acidic lavas.
75 3 - PublicationRestrictedLast 100 ka tephrostratigraphic record of Mount Etna.(AGU, 2004)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; For thousands of years man has marvelled at the gigantic structure that makes up Mt. Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, and has lived side by side with the mountain, which despite its intense eruptive activity has always been considered a "friendly giant." After the Second World War, with its frequent but non life-threatening eruptions, Mt. Etna represented an ideal location for volcanological research for the national and international scientific community. Numerous scientists from Belgium, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America have taken part in volcanological research aimed at understanding the volcano.151 36