A temporary seismic network to study the seismicity of Pantelleria Island

Corfù, Greece

Pantelleria is an active volcanic island with a fumarolic and hydrothermal activity so much so that
it represents an interesting geothermal target as it presents high temperature gradients. This
peculiarity has made it the protagonist of a project (Panta-Rei) which aims to characterise the
geothermal reservoir of the island and to assets of its geothermal potential. Following the activity
of the project we installed a temporary seismic network to enhance the monitoring of seismic
activity and characterising background seismicity. Here we describe the design and installation of
the temporary network code ‘YM’, giving also a preliminary analysis on the performance. Although
it is an active volcano, the island doesn’t show, apparently, typical volcanic-tectonic earthquakes.
However, this is due to the lack of a local seismic network to detect earthquakes from 2022
onwards. Thanks to the 4 short period stations of the YM temporary network, on the island,
currently, are installed 8 seismic stations. The four temporary sites, mainly concentrated in the
central-southern portion of the island, were chosen after a seismic survey carried out in
September 2023, performed to test the site response and to evaluate both the background noise
level and the logistics of the installations. We installed the temporary stations in march 2024, also
minimising visual impact of the solar panels and the instrumentations. All the stations are working
regularly and the data are transmitted via LTE in real time stored on a server in Naples. Our
analysis, performed on the first month of seismic data acquired, indicates that the stations of the
temporary network have low seismic noise levels compared to the reference models, indicating a
high quality of the recorded waveforms and a good potential in detecting seismic events with low
energy as well.

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2. Peterson, J. R. Observations and modeling of seismic background noise. USGS, Albuquerque, New Mexico (1993).