GNGTS 2018 - 37° Convegno Nazionale

176 GNGTS 2018 S essione 1.2 seismic reflection data were acquired for a total of 4970 km 2 of new high resolution multibeam bathymetry (Fig. 2). Eight Conductivity-Temperature–Depth (CTD) casts were performed along the sea water column. Using Niskin bottles, four water column samples were collected: two corresponding to the two multiparametric observatories, one corresponding to a newly- discovered mud volcano, and a last one far away from these latter three sites and located along a fault zone (Fig. 2). The deep marine devices were recently (May 2018) recovered during the Seismofaults 2018 survey, when three further OBS/H were deployed to keep monitoring the seismicity of the Ionian region (Fig. 2). While the deep marine data are being downloaded and processed, we have focused our attention on a mud volcano located off southern Calabria. Mud volcanoes are the emergence over the Earth’s surface of shallow-to-deep conduits for the ascent of endogenous overpressured geofluids. As such, these volcanoes are used, for instance, to study fluids squeezed up from petroleum plays, but have been also hypothesized as being suitable structures for identifying geochemical precursors of earthquakes or for tracking the seismic cycle. Operational systems in this latter sense are still inexistent or very rare and related preliminary studies to improve the feasibility of mud volcanoes as suitable tools for earthquake precursor identification are therefore necessary. A contribution to this future feasibility is one of the main aim of this project. The Ionian Sea in southern Italy is at the center of active interaction and convergence between the Eurasian and African-Adriatic plates in the Mediterranean. This area is seismically active with instrumentally-historically-recorded M > 7.0 earthquakes and it Fig. 2 - Workplan of the Seismofaults 2017 and 2018 scientific cruises in the Ionian Sea. Red crosses are the deployment locations of eleven seafloor seismometers (three OBS/H version A deployed in 2018 and eight OBS/H version B deployed in 2017). Open circles are the deployment locations of two seafloor multiparametric geochemical- geophysical observatories. Yellow crosses are locations of five gravity cores. Samples for the seawater column analyses were collected above the GeoC1, GeoC2, and GeoC3 sites, and above the location of Core SF17_01. Solid boxes correspond to location of the geophysical acquisition working areas, whereas the dashed box is the calibration patch test area. Dashed lines are the GPS navigation tracks of the Seismofaults 2017 scientific cruise.