Search

The Lucanian settlement of Caselle in Pittari represents one of the most interesting and amazing archaeological sites located in the Southern Italy. The excavations realized in the last three decades have confirmed the presence of an important settlement including houses, workshops, fortification walls. With the aim to identify the urban plan of the site, an extensive geophysical campaign was carried out in the last two years. Results show how the integrated use of archaeological information and geophysical data allow to reconstruct the ancient urban plan of the site formed by orthogonal roads (plateiai and stenopoi) that neatly delimit the isolates (insulae).

Occupying the natural underground spaces, or excavating the rock mass to create new voids, has been since very long times the most typical habit for ancient populations in large sectors of the Mediterranean Basin. The underground environment offers shelter (from adverse climate, and enemies), possibility to hide (but also to control the surrounding territory), provides natural resources such as water, ores and minerals, protects livestock, and allows to keep working even when outside very hot climatic conditions are present. For all the above reasons, in Basilicata and Apulia regions (S Italy), where most of the land is of karst origin, living underground is testified in about all the past civilizations. The huge natural and cultural heritage related to the underground has never been fully exploited so far. In this area, one of the most well-known sites is the town of Matera (recently designated as the 2019 European Capital of Culture). The urban history and development of Matera is strongly linked to the use of the underground space, which is still inhabited and represents the main attraction for tourists. Its urban setting is well integrated with the natural landscape, characterized by deep karst valleys, on which flanks houses, storage rooms, worship sites, and work places have been realized. In the recent past, it was also considered as a negative example, quite far from the new development and technology of the modern society. Nevertheless, most of the solutions used by ancient civilizations were highly technological: for instance, the way to collect and transport water, to keep some hydric reserve also during the dry season, were extremely ingenious. Starting from the idea that several lessons could be learnt from the past civilizations, five institutes of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) have recently started a joint project, aimed at exploiting the cultural heritage represented by the underground environment in S Italy. The CNR institutes involved in the project cover different fields related to the study of the underground: from direct explorations and engineering-geological analyses addressed to evaluation of the stability of underground voids (IRPI), to geophysical surveys for identification of voids, and characterization of the subsurface (IMAA, IBAM), to urban history and evolution (ISSM), to archaeological representations through modern technologies (IBAM), and to protocols for the integrated valorisation and management of the cultural heritage (ICVBC). In this contribution, the first activities jointly carried out by the CNR Team are presented and discussed, as an example of multi-disciplinary effort aimed at reaching a high level of knowledge, and at providing fundamental information and data to stakeholders, technicians, and local administrations, in order to safeguard the natural and cultural heritage, and enhance and use it in the most proper way.

In the framework of S3 project "Short term earthquake forecasting" supported by Department of Civil Protection (DPC) and National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), a magnetotelluric (MT) station was installed in the Pollino area (southern Italy) during September 2012 by the Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis (IMAA-CNR, Italy) in order to investigate possible correlation between electromagnetic signals and seismicity. For the last two years Pollino area has been characterized by swarm-type seismicity, culminating with the earthquake occurred on October 25, 2012 of magnitude M-W=5.0. After the mainshock, the INGV installed a seismic station close to the MT station. In this paper, we focus the analysis on the largest event (M-L=3.6) recorded during the co-located electromagnetic and seismic experiment. We applied time-frequency misfit criteria based on the continuous Morlet wavelet transform to compare the electric and seismic homologous components: this analysis confirms an overall good waveform similarity between the signals, but also some interesting differences in amplitude for frequencies above 1 Hz in correspondence of the arrival of particular seismic phases that need further investigations.

We investigate the time dynamics of sequences of earthquakes occurred in three different seismic zones in Italy. All the series analyzed present 1/f(alpha) temporal fluctuations, shown by the power-law behaviour of several statistics (Fano Factor, Allan Factor and Count-based Periodogram), that allow to detect correlation properties in point processes.

The study deals with a multi-disciplinary set of tools aimed to identify the factors controlling the seismic effects caused by an earthquake of the past in a historical town. To this end we illustrate a case study based on the analysis of the damage caused by the 1930 Irpinia earthquake (Me=6.7) in a town of Southern Italy. To understand the anomalies of damage, we used an integrated approach that combines geological and geophysical surveys with the analysis of archive sources. Geological surveys were integrated by geo-electrical prospecting and drillings. Moreover, the influence of the soil profile on Peak Ground Acceleration and Housner Intensity was investigated by 1D numerical modelling and the earthquake slope response to seismic shaking was characterised by the azimuthal variation of Noise Standard Spectral Ratio. Finally, a combination among all these data allowed to create a complete picture of the possible causes of uneven damage

The remediation of polluted soils by heavy metals concerns wide areas of the planet, and the electrokinetic remediation (EKR) is an alternative method to the traditional ones. Moreover, in the current technologies this technique requests high power levels, with consequent security and cost problems. To enhance the process it is possible to use hydro-silica layers properties: these layers allow to move the heavy metals, if the electrical field is applied for a long time (T > 24 hours). Previous experiences showed that a sinusoidal waveform can improve the efficiency of the process up to 70%. In this paper we show the results of the EKR experiments carried out with two different electric fields: linear and radial. The electric field was controlled both as gradient and waveform (positive sinusoidal and DC). We worked with saturated sands polluted by Cr(VI). The process was monitored and calibrated using sets of voltage electrodes, chemical analysis and complex electrical resistivity of selected sand samples. The EKR process moved the 69% of Cr(VI) applying a linear electric field, while it moved the 34% of Cr(VI), applying a radial electric field. We also observed that the local electric resistivity is an efficient and economic index of the process, and the behaviour of the resistivity versus voltage let us presume that a positive ramp up signal, with a period of 12 hours, should be more effective than the positive sinusoidal one. Moreover, these experiments show that the process electrodeposits the heavy metal on to the surface of the high current electrode, consequently the polarity inversion of the applied electric field can clean this electrode and restore his "storage capacity".

An extensive experimental and numerical investigation has been carried out to assess the status of the 'Ponte sul Basento' (1967-1976), in the town of Potenza (Basilicata region, southern Italy), better known as the Musmeci bridge. Architecturally, the bridge is a considerable reinforced 20th century concrete structure that was designed and built by the Italian architect Sergio Musmeci (1926-1981). Moreover, the bridge represents an important element of the infrastructural network, linking the city centre to the Potenza-Sicignano highway, crossing the Basento river and the railway close to the main train station of the city. Recently, due to ageing and continuous and significant traffic, the bridge started to be affected by several problems such as water infiltration. Within the presented study, a widespread ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey has been designed to investigate the geometrical characteristics of the bridge deck (Gerber saddles, internal stiffening walls, pillar supports) and detect the presence of defects or damage due to water infiltration and traffic fatigue. Concerning this, a 900 MHz 3D GPR survey has been performed along a zone of one of the lanes on the road surface. Moreover, a second 1500 MHz 3D survey has been carried out at the bottom of the bridge deck in order to gain detailed information about an important structural element of the bridge, the Gerber saddle. Both results have been processed following two approaches: the first a classical time-domain processing session based on commercial software and the use of migration; the second in microwave tomography, an advanced frequency domain automatic PC-based inversion algorithm. In this paper, we present a comparative interpretation of both kinds of processed results, and provide considerations about the investigated structures.

Digital photogrammetric analysis and Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) techniques were applied to evaluate the volume of material involved in a complex roto-translational slide occurred in the territory of Picerno (Basilicata region, southern Italy). Analytical and digital photogrammetric techniques facilitated a multi-temporal analysis of aerial photos for the years 1997, 2004 and 2006. In order to identify different geomorphologic features (scarps, terraces and trenches) of the landslide and their development, the analytical and digital photo interpretation was performed at the maximum scale of 1:5000. Geological and geomorphological surveys were carried out to verify photo-interpretation results. Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) for 1997, 2004 and 2006 were produced by applying the Grid Adaptive method. The differential DEMs (2006-1997; 2006-2004; 2004-1997) for the most dangerous part of the landslide allowed us to recognize the areas affected either by deposition or erosion and also estimate any altitudinal changes in each geomorphologic unit. To detect the sliding surface and estimate the thickness of the sliding material, several transversal and longitudinal ERT profiles were obtained. The electrical images of subsurface supported by stratigraphical data from boreholes were integrated with the information from the DEMs. The altitudinal changes and the sizes of the source and accumulation areas allowed us to estimate the volume of material involved in the mass movement. The fusion of data from different sensors allows us to gather indications on the surface and subsurface characteristics of the landslide providing useful information for landslide mitigation activities. Such an approach can help both to improve our knowledge and overcome the drawbacks of each methodology.

The M(w) 6.3, 2009 earthquake (L'Aquila, central Italy) was characterized by discontinuous surface rupture along the 19-km long NW-SE trending Paganica-San Demetrio fault system. The earthquake nucleated just below the town of L'Aquila at a depth of ca. 9 km, rupturing mainly toward SE. Due to the high urbanization of the area and to centuries-long agricultural works, the surficial traces of this fault system are not clear everywhere. In order to provide more detailed and accurate information concerning the Paganica fault segment, four Electrical Resistivity Tomographies (ERT) were carried out around the Paganica village area. ERT results were supported by interpretation of aerial photos, morphotectonic investigation, geological field survey, borehole data and a paleoseismological trench. The electrical images showed the cumulated offset of the fault at depth and the existence of other splays parallel to the main strand which depict a staircase geometry of the fault in the Paganica area.