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Despite their importance for eruption forecasting the causes of seismic rupture processes during caldera unrest are still poorly reconstructed from seismic images. Seismic source locations and waveform attenuation analyses of earthquakes in the Campi Flegrei area (Southern Italy) during the 1983–1984 unrest have revealed a 4–4.5 km deep NW-SE striking aseismic zone of high attenuation offshore Pozzuoli. The lateral features and the principal axis of the attenuation anomaly correspond to the main source of ground uplift during the unrest. Seismic swarms correlate in space and time with fluid injections from a deep hot source, inferred to represent geochemical and temperature variations at Solfatara. These swarms struck a high-attenuation 3–4 km deep reservoir of supercritical fluids under Pozzuoli and migrated towards a shallower aseismic deformation source under Solfatara. The reservoir became aseismic for two months just after the main seismic swarm (April 1, 1984) due to a SE-to-NW directed input from the high-attenuation domain, possibly a dyke emplacement. The unrest ended after fluids migrated from Pozzuoli to the location of the last caldera eruption (Mt. Nuovo, 1538 AD). The results show that the high attenuation domain controls the largest monitored seismic, deformation, and geochemical unrest at the caldera.

Summary Scattered waves observed at the seismographs of the National Italy's seismic network have been used to investigate the intrinsic dissipation and scattering properties of the lithosphere under the Southern Apennines, Italy. First, we investigate the coda‐Q properties, then we apply the MLTW analysis in the hypothesis of velocity and scattering coefficient constant with depth, and finally we interpret these results with the aid of numerical simulations in a medium with depth dependent velocity and scattering coefficient. Results obtained in the hypothesis of a uniform model show that a low scattering‐Q−1 and a relatively higher intrinsic‐Q−1 characterize the lithosphere of the Southern Apennines. Numerical simulations of the seismogram energy envelopes were performed hypothesizing a strongly scattering crust and trasparent upper mantle, both with reasonable intrinsic dissipation coefficients. In these symplifying assumptions the theoretical curves calculated for the homogeneous model fit to the synthetic envelopes with scattering attenuation coefficients always greater than the synthetic values. This results lead to the consideration that scattering‐Q−1 obtained using MLTW analysis under the assumption of uniform medium are overestimated. The values of the scattering‐Q−1 estimated for Apennines at low frequency (1–2 Hz) in the hypothesis of uniform medium are of the same order of those obtained in several areas around the world. The estimates obtained for frequencies ranging from 2 to 12 Hz are very low if compared with those obtained in the same hypothesis for other areas around the world. Coda Q−1 closely resembles intrinsic Q−1.

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Coda wave attenuation imaging is able to detect fluid/melt accumulation and ancient magmatic bodies in volcanoes. Here we use recently developed space‐weighting sensitivity functions to invert for the spatial distributions of multifrequency coda wave attenuation ( Qc−1), measured during the largest monitored unrest at Campi Flegrei caldera (1983–1984). High‐attenuation anomalies are spatially correlated with the regions of highest structural complexities and cross faulting. They characterize deep fluid circulation in and around the aseismic roots of the 1534 A.D. Mount Nuovo eruption and fluid accumulation in the areas of highest hydrothermal hazard. Just offshore Pozzuoli, and at the highest frequency (wavelengths of ∼150 m), the main cause of ground deformation and seismicity during the unrest is an aseismic low‐attenuation circular anomaly, similar in shape and nature to those produced by ancient magmatic reservoirs and active sills at other volcanoes.