The NEutrinoMediterranean Observatory-Submarine Network 1 (NEMO-SN1) seafloor observatory is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, Western Ionian Sea, off Eastern Sicily (Southern Italy) at 2100-m water depth, 25 km from the harbor of the city of Catania. It is a prototype of a cabled deep-sea multiparameter observatory and the first one operating with real-time data transmission in Europe since 2005. NEMO-SN1 is also the first-established node of the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor Observatory (EMSO), one of the incoming European large-scale research infrastructures included in the Roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) since 2006. EMSO will specifically address long-term monitoring of environmental processes related to marine ecosystems, climate change, and geohazards. NEMO-SN1 has been deployed and developed over the last decade thanks to Italian funding and to the European Commission (EC) project European Seas Observatory NETwork-Network of Excellence (ESONET-NoE, 2007-2011) that funded the Listening to the Deep Ocean-Demonstration Mission (LIDO-DM) and a technological interoperability test (http://www.esonet-emso.org). NEMO-SN1 is performing geophysical and environmental long-term monitoring by acquiring seismological, geomagnetic, gravimetric, accelerometric, physico-oceanographic, hydroacoustic, and bioacoustic measurements. Scientific objectives include studying seismic signals, tsunami generation and warnings, its hydroacoustic precursors, and ambient noise characterization in terms of marine mammal sounds, environmental and anthropogenic sources. NEMO-SN1 is also an important test site for the construction of the Kilometre-Cube Underwater Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT), another large-scale research infrastructure included in the ESFRI Roadmap based on a large volume neutrino telescope. The description of the observatory and its most recent implementations is presented. On June 9, 2012, NEMO-SN1 was successfully deployed and is working in real time
The Institute for Geophysics (IfG) at Hamburg University and the Research Center for Marine Geoscience (GEOMAR) of Kiel University have developed new, wideband ocean bottom seismic stations (OBS) for long‐term, deep‐sea deployments of up to 1 year. A first long‐term pilot experiment of these stations was conducted in the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily, in‐cooperation with the first long‐term, deep‐sea test of the European Ocean Bottom Observatory GEOSTAR [Beranzoli et al., 2000] by Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). The seismic data retrieved prove that the new OBSs are useful for seismological studies. A large number of tele‐seismic earthquakes have been recorded in good quality; waves originating from such events pass the mantle and crust below the network, and thus provide important constraints on their structure.
Stromboli Island, located in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, is the emerged part (about 900 meters above sea level) of an approximately 3‐kilometer‐high stratovolcano. Its persistent Strombolian activity, documented for more than 2000 years, is sometimes interrupted by lava effusions or major explosions. Despite the number of recently published geophysical studies aimed at clarifying the volcano's eruption dynamics, the spatial extent and geometrical characteristics of its plumbing system remain poorly understood. In fact, knowledge of the inner structure and the zones of magma storage is limited to the upper few hundred meters of the volcanic edifice [Chouet et al., 2003; Mattia et al., 2004], and P and S wave velocity models are available only in restricted areas [Petrosino et al., 2002].
Understanding micro-seismicity is a critical question for earthquake hazard assessment. Since the devastating earthquakes of Izmit and Duzce in 1999, the seismicity along the submerged section of North Anatolian Fault within the Sea of Marmara (comprising the “Istanbul seismic gap”) has been extensively studied in order to infer its mechanical behaviour (creeping vs locked). So far, the seismicity has been interpreted only in terms of being tectonic-driven, although the Main Marmara Fault (MMF) is known to strike across multiple hydrocarbon gas sources. Here, we show that a large number of the aftershocks that followed the M 5.1 earthquake of July, 25th 2011 in the western Sea of Marmara, occurred within a zone of gas overpressuring in the 1.5–5 km depth range, from where pressurized gas is expected to migrate along the MMF, up to the surface sediment layers. Hence, gas-related processes should also be considered for a complete interpretation of the micro-seismicity (~M < 3) within the Istanbul offshore domain.
[1] We show over 4 months of 3-component broadband seismometer data from the SN-1 seafloor multidisciplinary observatory, deployed offshore of Eastern Sicily (Italy) at 2105 m b.s.l. The SN-1 spectra show background noise levels above 0.1 Hz similar to levels at a nearby ground station. An important noise source below 0.1 Hz is caused by tilt of the sensor induced by sea currents. Seismic noise levels above 0.01 Hz are strongly dependent on Etna volcanic activity. In spite of these intense noise sources, SN-1 recorded many local, regional and global events. The quality of seismic recordings confirms the validity of the installation procedure and good ground coupling of the 3-component broadband sensor, suggesting that SN-1 can be proposed as permanent observatory in this high seismic and volcanic hazard area. Citation: Monna, S., F. Frugoni, C. Montuori, L. Beranzoli, and P. Favali (2005), High quality seismological recordings from the SN-1 deep seafloor observatory in the Mt. Etna region, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L07303,
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