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The structural setting of the Ischia Island Caldera (Italy): first evidence from seismic and gravity data

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Abstract

Ischia Island is one of the active volcanoes of the Neapolitan area (Italy). Hazard assessment of active, densely populated volcano is primarily based on knowledge of the volcano’s past behaviour and of its present state. As a contribution to the definition of the present structural setting of Ischia Island, we constructed a new model of the shallow crust using geophysical data: seismic wave travel times and Bouguer anomaly data. We analysed these data sets through seismic tomography and gravity data inversion. The main results inferable from the 3D seismic and gravity images are the definition of the caldera rim along the perimeter of the island, as hypothesized by many authors, and the presence of a high velocity and density area inside the caldera consistent with extension of the resurgent block that characterizes the recent deformation of the island.

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Acknowledgments

M. Battaglia, A. Tibaldi, S. Calvari and G. Orsi are acknowledged for useful comments that improved an early version of the manuscript. This work was partially supported by the Italian Dipartimento della Protezione Civile in the frame of 2004–2006, 2007–2009, 2014 Agreement with Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). The authors thank H. Benz and A. Villasenor for making the tomography code available to the scientific community, together with all the people who allowed us to use seismic and gravity data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Fisica “E.R. Caianiello”, Università di Salerno, Fisciano (SA), Italy

    Paolo Capuano

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie, Università del Sannio, Benevento, Italy

    Raffaella De Matteis

  3. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università “Federico II”, Naples, Italy

    Guido Russo

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  1. Paolo Capuano
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  2. Raffaella De Matteis
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  3. Guido Russo
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Correspondence to Paolo Capuano.

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Editorial responsibility: S. Calvari

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Capuano, P., De Matteis, R. & Russo, G. The structural setting of the Ischia Island Caldera (Italy): first evidence from seismic and gravity data. Bull Volcanol 77, 79 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00445-015-0965-4

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