A unified 3D velocity model for the Neapolitan volcanic areas

Abstract

One of the main issues in seismic monitoring of active volcanic areas is the accurate location of earthquake hypocenters. Volcano-tectonic seismicity is often characterized by small magnitude swarms, recorded by few seismic stations with a high picking uncertainty. Sometimes events lacks clear S-wave arrivals, due to the nature of some volcanic sources. All these features, together with the complex crustal structure of volcanoes, makes the earthquake location problem critical in such areas. One of the most important effort for improving the quality of hypocenter location is the use of realistic 3D velocity models. In the last 10 years, several scientific papers proposed 2D and 3D velocity models for Mt. Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei and the Gulf of Naples. They comes from both active seismic data (VESUVIO 94, TOMOVES 96, MAREVES 97 and SERAPIS 2001 experiments) and from local earthquake tomography. In this report we propose a global unified velocity model spanning from Ischia island to Appennine Mts. that allows us to locate earthquakes in the Neapolitan volcanic areas and in the Gulf of Naples. This model comes from a weighted averaging of 5 tomographic velocity models and a background regional model. Most of the model provides only P-wave velocities, only 2 models, obtained through local earthquake tomography at Mt. Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei also gives a S-wave velocity estimate. We show the difference between this new model and the previous 1D models adopted for routine locations at INGV-Osservatorio Vesuviano. We also relocate some events, using non-linear techniques showing differences in hypocenter position from previous locations and the improvement in final traveltime residuals and location uncertainties.