Eighteen years of GPS surveys in the Aeolian Islands (southern Italy): open data archive and velocity field

Abstract

Since the early 1970s, geodetic networks became a most important tool to monitor the present day deformations of the volcanic arc of the Aeolian Islands. The first benchmarks were installed in this region at Lipari and Vulcano Islands and the number of GPS benchmarks increased in time since the early ’90s. These networks were periodically surveyed in the frame of national and international geodynamic projects and for Civil Protection programs devoted to the mitigation of the volcanic hazard. The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) played a fundamental role in the realization and periodical reoccupation of these networks, with the goal to investigate the tectonic and volcanic processes, still active in this crucial area of the central Mediterranean. An updated GPS velocity map for this region, both for the horizontal and vertical component of land motion, with details for Lipari, Vulcano and Panarea Islands, is provided in this paper. The presented GPS velocity field also includes a set of additional discrete stations located in northern Sicily and Calabria together with data from the available CGPS networks active in southern Italy. Here we show the results from eighteen years of repeated GPS surveys performed in this region in the time span 1995-2013 and the open access AINET-GPS data archive, now freely available for the scientific community. Data will support scientific research and hopefully improve the assessment of volcanic and seismic hazard in this region