Report on the ICDP workshop DIVE (Drilling the Ivrea–Verbano zonE)

Abstract

Abstract. The Ivrea-Verbano Zone is the most complete, time-integrated crust-upper mantle archive in the world. It is a unique target for assembling data on the deep crust and the Moho transition zone and testing several hypotheses of formation, evolution, and modification of the continental crust through space and time across the Earth. The ICDP workshop Drilling the Ivrea-Verbano zonE (DIVE), held in Baveno, Italy, from 1 to 5 May 2017, focused on the scientific objectives and the technical aspects of drilling and sampling in the IvreaVerbano Zone at depth. A total of 47 participants from 9 countries with a wide variety of scientific and/or drilling expertise attended the meeting. Discussion on the proposed targets sharpened the main research lines and led to working groups and the necessary technical details to compile the full drilling proposal. The participants of the workshop concluded that four drilling operations in the Val Sesia and Val d'Ossola crustal sections represent the scientifically most promising solution to achieve the major goals within DIVE to unravel the physico-chemical properties and architecture of the lower continental crust towards the crust-mantle (Moho) transition zone.

Fieldtrips and Virtual Tours as Geotourism Resources: Examples from the Sesia Val Grande UNESCO Global Geopark (NW Italy)

“…The scientific importance of the Ivrea-Verbano Zone is once more underlined by the recent Project Drilling the Ivrea-Verbano Zone (DIVE), which, through four drilling operations in the Sesia and Ossola Valleysaims to unravel the physico-chemical properties and architecture of the lower continental crust towards the crust-mantle (Moho) transition [61].…”

The AlpArray Seismic Network: A Large-Scale European Experiment to Image the Alpine Orogen

“…These projects are (Fig. 2 ): EASI (for Eastern Alpine Seismic Investigation) with 55 stations in a N-S transect along 13.3°E (AlpArray Seismic Network 2014 ); CASE (for Central Adriatic Seismic Experiment) filling the coverage gap as much as possible across the Adriatic Sea (AlpArray Seismic Network 2016 ); LiSard (The Lithosphere of Sardinia) to broaden the aperture of the AASN ( http://host.uniroma3.it/progetti/lisard/project.html ); IvreaArray, a 10-station E–W-oriented array of 5-km spacing to focus on a section of the geophysical Ivrea Body (Hetényi et al 2017 ), where an ICDP initiative aims to drill down to several kilometres depth (project DIVE: Drilling the Ivrea-Verbano zonE; Pistone et al 2017 ); SWATH-D, an initiative that further increases the effective station density of the AASN along an E–W corridor in the southern Central and Eastern Alps (Heit et al 2017 ), and straddles the hypothesized polarity change of the subduction and the lower crustal suture zones; StressTransfer, a project to study stress transfer and Quaternary faulting in the northern Alpine foreland. …”

“…IvreaArray, a 10-station E–W-oriented array of 5-km spacing to focus on a section of the geophysical Ivrea Body (Hetényi et al 2017 ), where an ICDP initiative aims to drill down to several kilometres depth (project DIVE: Drilling the Ivrea-Verbano zonE; Pistone et al 2017 );…”

Pre‐Alpine (Variscan) Inheritance: A Key for the Location of the Future Valaisan Basin (Western Alps)

“…At last, the South‐Alpine basement (Figure ) has been much less and only locally reworked during the Alpine orogeny, and pre‐Alpine structures are well preserved. It constitutes a reference section for the crustal architecture at the end of the Permian (e.g., Henk et al, ; Pistone et al, ; Zingg, ) and its reworking during the Late Triassic‐Jurassic rifting (Handy, ; Handy et al, ). The Ivrea‐Verbano Zone displays a tilted metamorphic sequence ranging from amphibolite to granulite facies (Hunziker & Zingg, ; Zingg, ), intruded by a huge mafic body of Early Permian age (Garuti et al, ; Pin, ; Peressini et al, ).…”