GNGTS 2024 - Atti del 42° Convegno Nazionale

Session 1.2 GNGTS 2024 monitoring of global warming being the second natural methane source (Mazzini et al., 2021; Etope et al., 2019), mud volcanoes (MVs) can be a serious source for Geohazard. Sometmes MVs generate paroxysmal events, during which gas blasts and sudden expulsion, fallout and fooding of large amounts of mud can damage facilites and severely hurt persons in their proximity. During the paroxysm occurred at the Maccalube di Aragona (Sicily) in 2014 two children died. However, a monitoring protocols for MV surveillance have never been implemented. MV monitoring to identfy the triggering processes of paroxysms so far carried out is mainly based on the interplay with large earthquakes or hydrocarbon exploraton drillings. Anyway a unanimous conclusion has not been reached yet. Other factors, such as the infuence of regional tectonic stress, hydrological cycle or periodic infaton-defaton cycles at the crustal scale, as those driven by Earth tdes, have been poorly investgated, as well as the MV buried structure. PROMUD project (htps://proget.ingv.it/it/promud ) aims to fll these knowledge gaps through a multdisciplinary approach, whose ultmate goal is to intercept reliable precursors and to individuate actvity state indicators of the evoluton towards a paroxysm. The Project PROMUD (“defniton of a multdisciplinary monitoring PROtocol for MUD volcanoes”) is a 3-years (2023-2025) INGV project integratng geophysical (seismic, magnetc, geoelectric, environmental radioactvity), geodetc (GNSS and tlt), bio-geochemical (characterizaton of emited fuids and vegetaton analysis), topographic and geomorphological data, acquired by both permanent networks and spot feld surveys. The research is being carried out by 5 Working Packages (WPs), with their own specifc objectves, that interplay and integrate with each other (Fig. 1). WP1 - Seismology, Tectonics, Tilt, hydrology and vegetaton analysis , deals with: the analysis of the background seismic noise wavefeld and its role in the identfcaton and monitoring of degassing sources and conduits; the response of the MV system to regional earthquakes; the possible link with the regional tectonic structures; the tltmetric observatons and their role in monitoring the MV actvity; the hydrological regime and its infuence on MV actvity; evaluaton of river network evoluton as a consequence of MV actvity; the vegetaton patern defniton as a marker of MV evoluton in space and tme and radio nuclides emissions by soil. WP2 - Remote Sensing and Topography , performs remote sensing for terrain and surface modelling aimed to identfy morphological variatons by compare mult-temporal models, searching for deformaton paterns related to changes in styles, amplitude and rates of MV actvity. The WP integrates data from surface variatons by levelling and GNSS to estmate volume changes. The group intends to produce frst images of a paroxysm, to identfy infaton/defaton cycles as proxies of MV actvity state. Moreover, the WP is carrying out a research of historical documents and testmonies, to assist the understanding of phenomena.