In this work, we analyze 12 meteorological events that occurred in the Mediterranean Sea during the period November 2011-November 2021 from a seismic point of view. In particular, we consider 8 Medicanes and 4 more common storms. Each of these events, in spite of the marked differences between them, caused heavy rainfall, strong wind gusts and violent storm surge with significant wave heights usually >3 m.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVolcano-seismic signals can help for volcanic hazard estimation and eruption forecasting. However, the underlying mechanism for their low frequency components is still a matter of debate. Here, we show signatures of dynamic strain records from Distributed Acoustic Sensing in the low frequencies of volcanic signals at Vulcano Island, Italy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: During biopharmaceutical drug manufacturing, storage, and distribution, proteins in both liquid and solid dosage forms go through various processes that could lead to protein aggregation. The extent of aggregation in the sub-micron range can be measured by analyzing a liquid or post-reconstituted powder sample using Micro-Flow Imaging (MFI) technique. MFI is widely used in biopharmaceutical industries due to its high sensitivity in detecting and analyzing particle size distribution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicroseism is the continuous background seismic signal caused by the interaction between the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the solid Earth. Several studies have dealt with the relationship between microseisms and the tropical cyclones, but none focused on the small-scale tropical cyclones that occur in the Mediterranean Sea, called Medicanes. In this work, we analysed the Medicane Apollo which impacted the eastern part of Sicily during the period 25 October-5 November 2021 causing heavy rainfall, strong wind gusts and violent sea waves.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOpen conduit basaltic volcanoes can be potentially hazardous as the eruptive activity may turn suddenly from a steady state to highly explosive. Unexpected changes in explosion intensity are recurrent at Stromboli volcano, where major explosions and large-scale paroxysms sometimes break off the ordinary, Strombolian activity with little or no warning. Two powerful paroxysmal eruptions took place at Stromboli volcano during the summer 2019, causing widespread fires, consistent damages across the island, injuries and one fatality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aims of this study were to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency and elective hand surgery in four Italian regions that had either a high (Lombardy and Piemonte) or a low (Sicilia and Puglia) COVID-19 case load to discuss problems and to elaborate strategies to improve treatment pathways. A panel of hand surgeons from these different regions compared and discussed data from the centers they work in. The COVID-19 pandemic had an enormous impact on both elective and emergency surgery in Italy, not only in highly affected regions but also - and paradoxically even at a higher extent - in regions with a low COVID-19 case load.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman activity causes vibrations that propagate into the ground as high-frequency seismic waves. Measures to mitigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused widespread changes in human activity, leading to a months-long reduction in seismic noise of up to 50%. The 2020 seismic noise quiet period is the longest and most prominent global anthropogenic seismic noise reduction on record.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe most continuous and ubiquitous seismic signal on Earth is the microseism, closely related to ocean wave energy coupling with the solid Earth. A peculiar feature of microseism recorded in Antarctica is the link with the sea ice, making the temporal pattern of microseism amplitudes different with respect to the microseism recorded in low-middle latitude regions. Indeed, during austral winters, in Antarctica the oceanic waves cannot efficiently excite seismic energy because of the sea ice in the Southern Ocean.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA detailed 3D image of the Calabro-Ionian subduction system in the central Mediterranean was obtained by means of a seismic tomography, exploiting a large dataset of local earthquakes and computing algorithms able to build a dense grid of measure nodes. Results show that the slab is continuous below the southern sector of the Calabro-Peloritan Arc, but the deformation processes developing at its edges are leading to its progressive narrowing, influencing tectonics and magmatism at the surface, and with possible stress concentration in the tip zones. In the southwest, the deformation occurring at a free slab edge lead to propagation of a vertical lithospheric tear in the overriding plate, which extends along a NW-SE fault system (Aeolian-Tindari-Letojanni) up to about 30 km into the Ionian Sea; further southeast, the lithosphere appears only flexed and not broken yet.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVolcanoes constitute dissipative systems with many degrees of freedom. Their eruptions are the result of complex processes that involve interacting chemical-physical systems. At present, due to the complexity of involved phenomena and to the lack of precise measurements, both analytical and numerical models are unable to simultaneously include the main processes involved in eruptions thus making forecasts of volcanic dynamics rather unreliable.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVolcano observatories provide near real-time information and, ultimately, forecasts about volcano activity. For this reason, multiple physical and chemical parameters are continuously monitored. Here, we present a new method to efficiently estimate the location and evolution of magmatic sources based on a stream of real-time surface deformation data, such as High-Rate GPS, and a free-geometry magmatic source model.
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