A scattering image of Campi Flegrei from the autocorrelation functions of velocity tomograms

Abstract

We propose a new quantitative approach for the joint interpretation of velocity and attenuation tomography images, performed through the lateral separation of scattering and intrinsic attenuation. The horizontal P-wave scattering attenuation structure below Campi Flegrei Caldera (CFC) is imaged using the autocorrelation functions (ACF) of P-wave vertical velocity fluctuations. Cluster analysis (CA) is then applied to interpret the images derived from ACF and the available P-wave total attenuation images at 2000m quantitatively. The analysis allows the separation of intrinsic and scattering attenuation on a 2-D plane, adding new geophysical constraints to the present knowledge about this volcanic area. The final result is a new, quantitative image of the past and present tectonic and volcanological state of CFC. P-wave intrinsic dissipation dominates in an area approximately located under the volcanic centre of Solfatara, as expected in a region with a large presence of fluids and gas. A north–south scattering attenuation region is mainly located below the zone of maximum uplift in the 1982–1984 bradiseismic crisis, in the sea side of the Pozzuoli bay, but also extending below Mt Nuovo. This evidence favours the interpretation in terms of a hard but fractured body, contoured by strong S-wave scatterers, corresponding to the Caldera rim: the region is possibly a section of the residual magma body, associated with the 1538 eruption of Mt Nuovo.