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We report the preliminary results from a project (GAPSS-Geothermal Area Passive Seismic Sources), aimed at testing the resolving capabilities of passive exploration methods on a well-known geothermal area, namely the Larderello-Travale Geothermal Field (LTGF). Located in the western part of Tuscany (Italy), LTGF is the most ancient geothermal power field of the world. GAPSS consisted of up to 20 seismic stations deployed over an area of about 50 x 50 Km. During the first 12 months of measurements, we located more than 2000 earthquakes, with a peak rate of up to 40 shocks/day. Preliminary results from analysis of these signals include: (i) analysis of Shear-Wave-Splitting from local earthquake data, from which we determined the areal distribution of the most anisotropic regions; (ii) local-earthquake travel-time tomography for both P-and S-wave velocities; (iii) telesismic receiver function aimed at determining the high-resolution (<0.5km) S-velocity structure over the 0-20km depth range, and seismic anisotropy using the decomposition of the angular harmonics of the RF data-set; (iv) S-wave velocity profiling through inversion of the dispersive characteristics of Rayleigh waves from earthquakes recorded at regional distances. After presenting results from these different analyses, we eventually discuss their potential application to the characterisation and exploration of the investigated area.

Volcanic unrest at Campi Flegrei caldera, Southern Italy, is characterized by episodes of ground deformation, seismicity, and enhanced fumarolic activity; whether its origin is purely hydrothermal or magmatic is highly debated. We have identified ground deformation patterns in strainmeter records from a heightened unrest period in late 2006, closely resembling synthetic signals from numerical simulations of shallow magma chamber replenishment and mixing. Together with other recent findings, our results depict a situation whereby periodic arrivals of deep magma feed a shallow intrusion at 3–4 km depth. These results suggest that the analysis of strainmeter records, coupled with advanced numerical simulations of magma dynamics, could lead to new approaches in imaging subsurface dynamic processes in volcanic areas.

Summary We take advantage of the new large AlpArray Seismic Network (AASN) as part of the AlpArray research initiative (www.alparray.ethz.ch), to establish a consistent seismicity catalogue for the greater Alpine region (GAR) for the time-period January 1st, 2016–December 31st, 2019. We use data from 1103 stations including the AASN backbone composed of 352 permanent and 276 (including 30 OBS) temporary broadband stations (network code Z3). Although characterized by a moderate seismic hazard, the European Alps and surrounding regions have a higher seismic risk due to the higher concentration of values and people. For these reasons, the GAR seismicity is monitored and routinely reported in catalogues by a 11 national and 2 regional seismic observatories. The heterogeneity of these dataset limits the possibility of extracting consistent information by simply merging to investigate the GAR's seismicity as a whole. The uniformly spaced and dense AASN provides, for the first time, a unique opportunity to calculate high-precision hypocentre locations and consistent magnitude estimation with uniformity and equal uncertainty across the GAR. We present a new, multi-step, semi-automatic method to process ∼50 TB of seismic signals, combining three different software. We used the SeisComP3 for the initial earthquake detection, a newly developed Python library ADAPT for high-quality repicking, and the well-established VELEST algorithm both for filtering and final location purposes. Moreover, we computed new local magnitudes based on the final high-precision hypocentre locations and re-evaluation of the amplitude observations. The final catalogue contains 3293 seismic events and is complete down to local magnitude 2.4 and regionally consistent with the magnitude 3 + of national catalogues for the same time period. Despite covering only 4 years of seismicity, our catalogue evidences the main fault systems and orogens’ front in the region, that are documented as seismically active by the EPOS-EMSC manually-revised regional bulletin for the same time period. Additionally, we jointly inverted for a new regional minimum 1D P-wave velocity model for the GAR and station delays for both permanent station networks and temporary arrays. These results provide the base for a future re-evaluation of the past decades of seismicity, and for the future seismicity, eventually improving seismic-hazard studies in the region. Moreover, we provide a unique, consistent seismic dataset fundamental to further investigate this complex and seismically active area. The catalogue, the minimum 1D P-wave velocity model, and station delays associated are openly shared and distributed with a permanent DOI listed in the Data Availability section.