Hosting Institution:

GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Germany

Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia – Osservatorio Etneo, Italy

Description:

The Etna Volcano Observatory (Osservatorio Etneo - INGV branch in Catania, Italy) supports research, and volcano monitoring and surveillance of the Sicilian volcanoes. Multi-parametric networks (seismic, infrasound, geodetic, geochemical, video-cameras, etc...) equipped with state-of-the art instrumentations are continuously running to provide multidisciplinary observations for volcano monitoring and related hazard assessment. Data and products from ground- and satellite-based instrumentation are accessible through the EPOS data portal and the volcano gateway (http://vo-tcs.ct.ingv.it/).

GFZ Potsdam (Germany) supports research and monitoring activities with seismometers (through the GIPP @ www.gfz.de/en/section/geophysical-imaging/infrastructure/geophysical-instrument-pool-potsdam-gipp) and Fibre Optic interrogators (DAS, DTS, etc) for research purposes.

INGV and GFZ Potsdam have acquired fibre optic data in the recent years, which can be either at the summit of Etna volcano, or in the slopes crossing the eastern fault system in inhabited areas, or in collaboration with INFN and Ifremer (France), in the Ionian Sea in the submersed slope of the sliding flank of Etna volcano.

Services offered:

The service offers 2 complementary features:

• Free use Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) interrogators to measure strain rate changes along a fiber optic cable that the user plans to use in the Eastern Sicily Testbed. An iDAS from Silixa (https://silixa.com/technology/idas-intelligent-distributed-acoustic-sensor/) or an OptoDAS from ASN (https://www.asn.com/fiber-sensing/)  will be provided equipped with an internal storage fully available for the data acquisition.
• Access to acquired DAS data sets in the Eastern Sicily test bed during various periods, covering quiet and volcano unrest phases, and in a variety of environments (on land, in the summit and off-shore). Signals are rich in events from seismic, volcanic, environmental and anthropogenic sources.

Modality of access:

The physical access to the DAS device involves 5 to 10 days of deployment depending on the nature of the proposed scientific project. Each project team can be composed of maximum 3 persons.

Data availability consists in accessing to GFZ Potsdam or INGV Catania for an initial period of 15 days. The dataset put at availability depends on the subject of the proposed research. Available data sets comprise:

• Records at the submarine cable (30 km) in 2019 (15 days), 2020 (10 days), 2021 (7 days) and 2023 (10 days);
• Records in Zafferana (4.5 km) in 2018 (15 days), together with a geophone array and one broadband sensor;
• Records from Linera to Zafferana (15 km) in 2019 (3 months);
• Records from the summit experiment in Pizzi Deneri (1.3 km) in 2018 (16 days).

Multidisciplinary projects involving more than one installation at Eastern Sicily are welcome and encouraged (see TA3-83-1/5). Potential users can also propose use of fiber optic cables accessed in the Eastern Sicily.

Support:

The physical access support includes:

1. safety training;
2. instrumentation training;
3. technical support and computer facilities for data access
4. field support and experiment set up;
5. the use of the DAS interrogator will be also supported by the supervision of highly specialized personnel.

Contact person:

Philippe Jousset (philippe.joussetgfz.de) and Gilda Currenti (gilda.currentiingv.it)