Mud Flow Dynamics at Gas Seeps (Nirano Salse, Italy)

Abstract

The Nirano Salse, known since the Roman Times, are one of the most beautiful and scenic mud volcanoes areas of Italy with thousands of visitors every year. In this work, we apply hydrogeological techniques to characterize mud levels in the Salse by means of GPS-RTK positioning and continuous level logging within mud conduits. Our results suggest that different mud levels in mud volcanoes clusters are due to the different gas-liquid ratio in the conduits and not necessarily exclude interconnection at depth, a hypothesis, on the other hand, that seems strengthened by mud level time series correlations. The presence of shallow aquifers at a depth of 5 to 30 m is also supported by our field data. These shallow aquifers may provide a temporary storage for the ascending gas and when fluid pressure in these aquifers exceeds the tensional strength of the sedimentary rock, leakage of fluids to the surface would occur.

The Geotourist Map of Ciucaș Mountains (Eastern Carpathians, Romania) – Model Regarding Capitalization of Geomorphosites

“…They also have an educational function, this representing a basic geotourism product through which geoeducation is carried out (the transmission of knowledge from various fields related to geosites and geomorphosites). The first cartographic representations of this type belong to the Italian school of geomorphology [1] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7], followed by other countries in the Alpine area, such as Switzerland [2] [14]. Later, the use of the geotourist map was extended to several countries, most of them with large mountainous areas (Morocco, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Serbia, Brazil, etc.).…”