Famennian (Late Devonian) conodonts from the Pizzul West section (Carnic Alps, Italy)

Conodonts from the Pizzul West section are presented. \u7f e section is located in the Cason di Lanza/Mt. Zermula area of the central Carnic Alps and it exposes about twenty-four metres of Upper Devonian limestone. \u7f e forty-one taxa documented allow the discrimination of seven biozones of Frasnian and Famennian: Upper rhenana, Upper crepida, Uppermost crepida, Lower rhomboidea, Upper rhomboidea, Lower marginifera and Lower expansa

Terremoto in Emilia Romagna (2012): le attività del Centro Operativo Emergenza Sismica

Come definito negli accordi riportati nell’ambito della Convenzione1 esistente tra l’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) e il Dipartimento di Protezione Civile (DPC), a poche ore dal forte terremoto che nella notte del 20 maggio 2012 ha colpito una vasta area dell’Emilia [Moretti et al., 2012; 2013a], è stato attivato il Pronto Intervento Sismico dell’INGV [Govoni et al., 2008; Moretti e Govoni, 2011; Moretti et al., 2010c]. Durante la prima settimana dell’emergenza l’obiettivo principale della struttura emergenziale INGV ha riguardato il miglioramento del monitoraggio sismico; sono state quindi attivate le reti sismiche mobili [maggiori dettagli in Moretti et al., 2012; 2013a] con il fine di integrare le stazioni permanenti della Rete Sismica Nazionale [RSN, Amato e Mele, 2008; Delladio et al., 2011]. Solo in una secondo momento, dopo circa 10 giorni dall’inizio della sequenza sismica è stato ufficialmente attivato il Centro Operativo Emergenza Sismica [COES, Moretti et al., 2010a], a seguito del decreto del Capo del DPC, con il quale è stata costituita la Direzione di Comando e Controllo (Di.Coma.C.2) presso l’Agenzia della Protezione Civile Regionale dell’Emilia Romagna (AgDPC) in Bologna. L’allestimento e il coordinamento del COES sono stati realizzati grazie alla collaborazione tra il Centro Nazionale Terremoti (CNT), a cui afferisce la struttura, e la Sezione INGV di Bologna, sita nel capoluogo della regione colpita dall’emergenza. In questo lavoro saranno descritte le modalità, le tempistiche e l’impegno di personale che hanno permesso e garantito l'attivazione e il buon funzionamento del COES

The Pre-Variscan sequence of the Carnic Alps

The Pre-Variscan sequence of the Carnic Alps includes rocks deposited between the Middle Ordovician and the early Late Carboniferous, and represents one of the most continuous sequence of the world in that time interval. In a relatively small area it is possible to distinguish rocks deposited at various latitudes and climate (from cold in the Ordovician to tropical in the Devonian), and in different sedimentary environments (from shallow water, including reef deposition, to basin). The lithostratigraphy of the sequence has been recently revised and formalised, and 36 formations have been discriminated

Lower Lochkovian (Lower Devonian) conodonts from Cellon section (Carnic Alps, Austria)

The conodont stratigraphy of the lower Lochkovian part of the famous Cellon section is presented. The association includes twenty-two taxa belonging to nine genera, and allows discriminating the two biozones of the lower Lochkovian (Icr. hesperius and Icr. postwoschmidti zones). Three taxa (Zieglerodina formosa, Z. mashkovae and Z. prosoplatys) are reported for the first time from the Carnic Alps, and other two species of Zieglerodina, probably new, are described in open nomenclature

Plotta Formation

The Plotta Formation is mainly composed of white, grayish or blackish porous chert. Locally, at its base, a thin breccia layer is developed. It is composed by small subrounded limestone clasts, angular relict chert fragments and dark siliceous crust

Peeking inside the mantle structure beneath the Italian region through SKS shear wave splitting anisotropy: a review

Over the years, seismic anisotropy characterization has become one of the most popular methods to study and understand the Earth’s deep structures. Starting from more than 20 years ago, considerable progress has been made to map the anisotropic structure beneath Italy and the Central Mediterranean area. In particular, several past and current international projects (such as RETREAT, CAT/SCAN, CIFALPS, CIFALPS-2, AlpArray) focused on retrieving the anisotropic structure beneath Italy and surrounding regions, promoting advances in the knowledge of geological and geodynamical setting of this intriguing area. All of these studies aimed at a better understanding the complex and active geodynamic evolution of both the active and remnant subduction systems characterising this region and the associated Apennines, Alps and Dinaric belts, together with the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian basins. The presence of dense high-quality seismic networks, permanently run by INGV and other institutions, and temporary seismic stations deployed in the framework of international projects, the improvements in data processing and the use of several and even more sophisticated methods proposed to quantify the anisotropy, allowed to collect a huge amount of anisotropic parameters. Here a collection of all measurements done on core refracted phases are shown and used as a measure of mantle deformation and interpreted into geodynamic models. Images of anisotropy identify well-developed mantle flows around the sinking European and Adriatic slabs, recognised by tomographic studies. Slab retreat and related mantle flow are interpreted as the main driving mechanism of the Central Mediterranean geodynamics

Seismic moment tensors of the April 2009, L'Aquila (Central Italy), earthquake sequence

On 2009 April 6, the Central Apennines were hit by an Mw = 6.3 earthquake. The region had been shaken since 2008 October by seismic activity that culminated in two foreshocks with Mw > 4, 1 week and a few hours before the main shock. We computed seismic moment tensors for 26 events with Mw between 3.9 and 6.3, using the Regional Centroid Moment Tensor (RCMT) scheme. Most of these source parameters have been computed within 1 hr after the earthquake and rapidly revised successively. The focal mechanisms are all extensional, with a variable and sometimes significant strike-slip component. This geometry agrees with the NE-SW extensional deformation of the Apennines, known from previous seismic and geodetic observations. Events group into three clusters. Those located in the southern area have larger centroid depths and a wider distribution of T-axis directions. These differences suggest that towards south a different fault system was activated with respect to the SW-dipping normal faults beneath L'Aquila and more to the nort

Seismic moment tensors of the April 2009, L'Aquila (Central Italy), earthquake sequence

On 2009 April 6, the Central Apennines were hit by an Mw = 6.3 earthquake. The region had been shaken since 2008 October by seismic activity that culminated in two foreshocks with Mw > 4, 1 week and a few hours before the main shock. We computed seismic moment tensors for 26 events with Mw between 3.9 and 6.3, using the Regional Centroid Moment Tensor (RCMT) scheme. Most of these source parameters have been computed within 1 hr after the earthquake and rapidly revised successively. The focal mechanisms are all extensional, with a variable and sometimes significant strike-slip component. This geometry agrees with the NE-SW extensional deformation of the Apennines, known from previous seismic and geodetic observations. Events group into three clusters. Those located in the southern area have larger centroid depths and a wider distribution of T-axis directions. These differences suggest that towards south a different fault system was activated with respect to the SW-dipping normal faults beneath L'Aquila and more to the nort

Seismic moment tensors of the April 2009, L'Aquila (Central Italy), earthquake sequence

On 2009 April 6, the Central Apennines were hit by an Mw= 6.3 earthquake. The region had been shaken since 2008 October by seismic activity that culminated in two foreshocks with Mw > 4, 1 week and a few hours before the main shock. We computed seismic moment tensors for 26 events with Mw between 3.9 and 6.3, using the Regional Centroid Moment Tensor (RCMT) scheme. Most of these source parameters have been computed within 1 hr after the earthquake and rapidly revised successively. The focal mechanisms are all extensional, with a variable and sometimes significant strike-slip component. This geometry agrees with the NE–SW extensional deformation of the Apennines, known from previous seismic and geodetic observations. Events group into three clusters. Those located in the southern area have larger centroid depths and a wider distribution of T-axis directions. These differences suggest that towards south a different fault system was activated with respect to the SW-dipping normal faults beneath L’Aquila and more to the north