Shear wave splitting changes associated with the 2001 volcanic eruption on Mt. Etna

The time delays and polarizations of shear wave splitting above small earthquakes show variations before the 2001 July 17–August 9 2001 flank eruption on Mt Etna, Sicily. Normalized time delays, measured by singular value decomposition, show a systematic increase starting several days before the onset of the eruption. On several occasions before the eruption, the polarization directions of the shear waves at Station MNT, closest to the eruption, show 90◦- flips where the faster and slower split shear waves exchange polarizations. The last 90◦-flip being 5 days before the onset of the eruption. The time delays also exhibit a sudden decrease shortly before the start of the eruption suggesting the possible occurrence of a ‘relaxation’ phenomena, due to crack coalescence. This behaviour has many similarities to that observed before a number of earthquakes elsewhere

2nd CapHaz-Net Regional Hazard Workshop: Social capacity building for Alpine hazards

The Alpine Space is a trans-national territory inhabited by 13 million people and comprising the territory of 8 countries, 83 regions and about 6,200 communities. It is characterised by a great variety in terms of natural hazard exposure. Floods, avalanches, debris flows, landslides, forest fires threaten the entire Alpine Space and are triggered by both natural and anthropogenic factors. The work described in this report focuses on this space and aims at bringing together and confronting different perspectives on the theme of social capacity building. It summarises the results of one of the work packages (WP8) of the CapHaz-Net project, which aims at identifying social capacities that contribute to making European societies more resilient to the impacts of natural hazards. More precisely the work presented here links previous project findings (related both to central topics and specific social capacities) to the practice of alpine hazards management in Europe, underlining potentials for enhancement of resilience both in this region and in Europe as a whole. This report is based on the preparatory work and the results of the Alpine Regional Hazard Workshop that took place in Gorizia (North Eastern Italy) on 4th and 5th April 2011. The main objectives were to provide an overview of existing institutional frames and the respective policy context at the regional scale, to better understand how social capacity building and preparedness strategies for Alpine hazards work in practice and to foster interdisciplinary and cross country dialogue between scientists and practitioners. This was done by taking into account strengths and weaknesses of existing tools and approaches and by analysing the potential for transferring best practices to different regional and hazard contexts. To bridge the gap between research and practice both theoretical knowledge and practical experiences were taken into account. The workshop started from a description of the main characteristics of alpine hazards. Then the focus shifted on operational risk management in four different countries of the alpine arch (Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia and Italy) and finally on practices for risk mitigation in two Italian case studies (Vipiteno/Sterzing in the Trentino Alto Adige region and Malborghetto-Valbruna in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region). The SWOT methodology was used as a heuristic tool for organizing the available insights and the participants' discussion. Natural sciences, historical perspectives as well as legal analysis have contributed to broadening and detailing the social capacity concept and more precisely to characterising and further specifying each particular capacity. Practitioners in the field of alpine hazards in different countries and residents of the two case study area also contributed by presenting and discussing their views and perspectives about prevention, mitigation, emergency management and recovery from natural disasters

Assessing environmental requirements effects on forest fragmentation sensitivity in two arboreal rodents

The study of the effect of habitat fragmentation on species that inhabit residual patches requires the investigation of the relationship existing between species distribution and landscape components. To understand which components of landscape mosaics are more influential for species’ persistence, we compared the distribution of two arboreal rodents proved to be sensitive to habitat fragmentation, the hazel dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius and the red squirrel Sciurus vulgaris. Their occurrence in residual oak woods in central Italy was studied with nest-boxes and hair-tubes, developing a new method for hair analysis. Their distributions were analysed considering patch, matrix composition and configuration, and landscape vegetation variables. The two species showed a different degree of plasticity, with the squirrel being significantly more specialised at the landscape scale. The comparison of the two distribution patterns highlighted the influence of different ecological constraints and the existence of different strategies to cope with fragmentation. Patch size and patch attributes were generally weaker determinants of occurrence, compared to landscape metrics. The squirrel presence was significantly influenced by the presence of shared perimeter between hedgerows and woods and by the lack of isolation of the residual patches, suggesting the use of several fragments to compensate the low habitat quality. Conversely the hazel dormouse seemed to be more affected by the internal management of the woods, and in particular by the mean DBH. Our results highlight how the recognition of the extrinsic constraints and the influence of multi-scale habitat selection may help guiding land use management, to ensure species conservation in profoundly exploited landscapes

The stress-field variation on the italian active volcanic areas: the shear wave splitting monitoring

In the tex

Shear wave splitting time variation by stress-induced magma uprising at Mount Etna volcano

Shear wave splitting exhibits clear time variations before the July 17th – August 9th, 2001 flanK eruption at Mount Etna. The normalized time delays, Tn, detected through an orthogonal transformation of singular value decomposition, exhibit a clearincrease starting 20 days before the occurrence of the eruption (July 17th); the qS1 polarization direction, obtained using a 3D covariance matrix decomposition, shows a 90°-flip several times during the analyzed period: the last flip 5 days before the occurrence of the eruption. Both splitting parameters also exhibit a relaxation phase shortly before the starting of the eruption. Our observations seem in agreement with Anisotropic Poro Elasticity (APE) modelling, suggesting a tool for the temporal monitoring of the build up of the stress leading to the occurrence of the 2001 eruption at Mt. Etna

Measurement of the water vapour vertical profile and of the Earth's outgoing far infrared flux

International audienceOur understanding of global warming depends on the accuracy with which the atmospheric components that modulate the Earth's radiation budget are known. Many uncertainties still exist on the radiative effect of water in the different spectral regions, among which the far infrared where few observations have been made. An assessment is shown of the atmospheric outgoing flux obtained from a balloon-borne platform with wideband spectrally resolved nadir measurements at the top-of-atmosphere over the full spectral range, including the far infrared, from 100 to 1400 cm?1, made by a Fourier transform spectrometer with uncooled detectors. From these measurements, we retrieve 15 pieces of information about water vapour and temperature profiles, and surface temperature, with a precision of 5% for the mean water vapour profile and a major improvement of the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere knowledge. The retrieved atmospheric state makes it possible to calculate the emitted radiance as a function of the zenith angle and to determine the outgoing radiation flux, proving that spectrally resolved observations can be used to derive accurate information on the integrated flux. While the retrieved temperature is in good agreement with ECMWF analysis, the retrieved water vapour profile differs significantly, and, depending on time and location, the derived flux differs in the far infrared (0?600 cm?1) from that derived from ECMWF by 2?3.5 W/m2±0.4 W/m2. The observed discrepancy is larger than current estimates of radiative forcing due to CO2 increases since pre-industrial time. The error with which the flux is determined is caused mainly by calibration uncertainties while detector noise has a negligible effect, proving that uncooled detectors are adequate for top of the atmosphere radiometry

Differences in telomere length between sporadic and familial cutaneous melanoma

BACKGROUND: Several pieces of evidence indicate that a complex relationship exists between constitutional telomere length (TL) and the risk of cutaneous melanoma. Although the general perception is that longer telomeres increase melanoma risk, some studies do not support this association. We hypothesise that discordant data are due to the characteristics of the studied populations. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the association of telomere length with familial and sporadic melanoma. METHODS: TL was measured by multiplex quantitative PCR in leukocytes from 310 melanoma patients according to familial/sporadic and single/multiple cancers and 216 age-matched controls. RESULTS: Patients with sporadic melanoma were found to have shorter telomeres as compared to those with familial melanoma. In addition, shorter telomeres, while tending to reduce the risk of familial melanoma regardless of single or multiple tumors, nearly trebled the risk of single sporadic melanoma. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first time that TL has been correlated to opposite effects on melanoma risk according to the presence or absence of familial predisposition. Individual susceptibility to melanoma should be taken into account when assessing the role of TL as a risk factor. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Glassy magnetic behavior and correlation length in nanogranular Fe-oxide and Au/Fe-oxide samples

In nanoscale magnetic systems, the possible coexistence of structural disorder and competing magnetic interactionsmay determine the appearance of a glassy magnetic behavior, implying the onset of a low-temperature disordered collective state of frozen magnetic moments. This phenomenology is the object of an intense research activity, stimulated by a fundamental scientific interest and by the need to clarify how disordered magnetism effects may affect the performance of magnetic devices (e.g., sensors and data storage media). We report the results of a magnetic study that aims to broaden the basic knowledge of glassy magnetic systems and concerns the comparison between two samples, prepared by a polyol method. The first can be described as a nanogranular spinel Fe-oxide phase composed of ultrafine nanocrystallites (size of the order of 1 nm); in the second, the Fe-oxide phase incorporated non-magnetic Au nanoparticles (10-20 nm in size). In both samples, the Fe-oxide phase exhibits a glassy magnetic behavior and the nanocrystallite moments undergo a very similar freezing process. However, in the frozen regime, the Au/Fe-oxide composite sample is magnetically softer. This effect is explained by considering that the Au nanoparticles constitute physical constraints that limit the length of magnetic correlation between the frozen Fe-oxide moments

Multiple resolution seismic attenuation imaging at Mt. Vesuvius

A three-dimensional S wave attenuation tomography of Mt. Vesuvius has been ob- tained with multiple measurements of coda-normalized S-wave spectra of local small magnitude earthquakes. We used 6609 waveforms, relative to 826 volcano-tectonic earthquakes, located close to the crater axis in a depth range between 1 and 4 km (below the sea level), recorded at seven 3-component digital seismic stations. We adopted a two-point ray-tracing; rays were traced in an high resolution 3-D velocity model. The spatial resolution achieved in the attenuation tomography is comparable with that of the velocity tomography (we resolve 300 m side cubic cells). We statisti- cally tested that the results are almost independent from the radiation pattern. We also applied an improvement of the ordinary spectral-slope method to both P- and S-waves, assuming that the di¤erences between the theoretical and the experimental high frequency spectral-slope are only due to the attenuation e¤ects.We could check the coda-normalization method comparing the S attenuation image obtained with the two methods. The images were obtained with a multiple resolution approach. Results show the general coincidence of low attenuation with high velocity zones. The joint interpretation of velocity and attenuation images allows us to interpret the low attenuation zone intruding toward the surface until a depth of 500 meters below the sea level as related to the residual part of solidi ed magma from the last eruption. In the depth range between -700 and -2300 meters above sea level, the images are consistent with the presence of multiple acquifer layers. No evidence of magma patches greater than the minimum cell dimension (300m) has been found. A shallow P wave attenuation anomaly (beneath the southern ank of the volcano) is consitent with the presence of gas saturated rocks. The zone characterized by the maximum seismic energy release cohincides with a high attenuation and low velocity volume, interpreted as a cracked medium