0000000000384863
AUTHOR
A. D’alessandro
Remotely controlled aerial and underwater vehicles in support to magnetic surveys
This article deals with the creation of a professional magnetometer, a flexible, light and compact instrument that can be installed on aerial and marine drones. The instrument can accurately measure the local magnetic field. Subsequently, it was installed on AUV and a micro ROV to test its effectiveness for archaeological purposes and magnetic surveys. Experimental data show that both systems can be used by filtering disturbances from vehicles.
Evidence of surface faulting in the archaeological site of Santa Venera al Pozzo (Catania-Eastern Sici-ly): first results from geophysical investigations
We present the first results of a preliminary geological and geophysical survey carried out in the archaeological site of Santa Venera al Pozzo (Catania, Italy). The site dates back to the Roman Age, (1st century BC). Geological surveys highlighted a set of remarkable fractures affecting some archeological remains, suggesting the occurrence of a capable fault zone through the area. Multidisciplinary geophysical surveys (seismic refraction and electrical resistivity tomographies, together with aerial photographic and thermographic survey) identified a main tectonic discontinuity ascribable to the fault zone, allowing us to infer that the fractures observed at surface could be the evidence of…
Seismic microzonation by means of cluster analysis
The identification of areas with uniform behaviour in seismic perspective is a very complex task that involves the simultaneous assessment of many parameters. In this paper we propose an automatic procedure for the seismic microzonation based on cluster analysis and performed by means of an agglomerative hierarchical algorithm. It exploits a proximity matrix specifically defined on the parameters space and the average linkage criteria. The procedure has been used to carry out the expedite seismic microzonation of some high seismic hazard areas, only using the data inferred by the extensive application of the HVSR technique. The results of the clustering procedures have been assessed from a …
Seismic tomography tests applied to a gravity dam
The control of the safety assessment of a dam is largely dependent on knowledge of the mechanical parameters of the actual construction, as well as its geological substratum. The application of geophysical methods can be used in existing dams to evaluate the materials (strength properties) and to verify if they match design expectations, as well as to contribute to the safety control. In particular seismics methods can considerably contribute to the examination indicating the less consolidated material and the degradation of mechanical parameters. For the characterization of the concrete conservation three seismic tomographies and a vertical seismic profile on the dam body were performed.Th…
Geomorphological and geophysical investigations to study the landslide affecting the archaeological site of abakainon
In recent years, a detailed archeoseismological investigation has been carried out in the necropolis of Abakainon in order to identify traces of an ancient earthquake. Although the identification of seismic damage was undoubtedly attributed to the 1st century AD earthquake, it was hypothesised that the level of damaging observed in the necropolis, as well as the counter slope tilting of the tomb basements may have also caused by a seismo-induced landslide, which produced locally an amplification of the seismic shaking. In order to identify the landslide, on which the Greek site lies, detailed geomorphological and geophysical surveys have been carried out. The research was directed to the ac…
A multidisciplinary non-invasive approach in geoarchaeology conducted on the archaeological area of Selinunte
Southwestern Sicily is an area of infrequent seismic activity. Only an earthquake occurred in the Belice valley on 13 January 1968 is reported in the historic earthquake catalogues (see e.g. [1]) as severe event, that is characterized by moderate-high energy (M=6.5) and significant epicentral and local macroseismic intensities (Io=X and I=VII-VIII of the MCS scale). Nevertheless, some studies (e.g. [2]) suggest that probably at least two earthquakes struck this area, between the fourth century B.C. and the early Middle Ages, with energy able to damage and produce collapse in some temples of Selinunte. In this framework, we propose the use of non-invasive approaches in geoarchaeology for det…
Pre-conceptual design of EU DEMO balance of plant systems: Objectives and challenges
Abstract The European Research Roadmap to the Realisation of Fusion Energy foresees that the DEMO reactor is going to succeed ITER in the pathway towards the exploitation of nuclear fusion, achieving long plasma operation time, demonstrating tritium self-sufficiency and producing net electric output on an industrial scale. Therefore, its design must be more oriented towards the Balance of Plant (BoP) than it is in ITER. Since the early pre-conceptual phase of the DEMO project, emphasis has been laid on identifying the main requirements affecting the overall architecture of the BoP. For instance, specific efforts and proper solutions have been envisaged to cope with the pulsed nature of the …
Seismostratigraphic modeling using constrained HVSR Data
An application of HVSR inversion is presented in order to verify the effectiveness of this technique for purposes of reconstruction of the buried geological setting where stratigraphic constraints are available. Specifically, the reconstruction of the stratigraphy in the studied area has been obtained by a seismic-stratigraphic three-dimensional modeling. This allowed for geophysical and geognostic data derived from surveys carried out during this study, as well as previously by the municipality of Palermo.
Seismic investigation for the characterization of a gravity concrete dam
Monitoring of large-scale infrastructures plays an important role for public safety and prevention. The control of the safety assessment of a dam is largely dependent on knowledge of the mechanical parameters of the actual construction, as well as its geological substratum. The application of geophysical methods can considerably contribute to the examination indicating the less consolidated material and the degradation of mechanical parameters. A seismic tomographic approach has been used in a typical gravity concrete dam without reinforcement to detect mechanical properties of the body of the dam and its geological setting. Three seismic travel time tomographies in the dam body as well as …
Near surface seismostratigraphic modelling of the Bandita plain in Palermo town (Italy) from integra-ted analysis of HVSR and stratigraphic data
The Horizontal to Vertical Spectral Ratio (HVSR) noise method (Nakamura, 1989) is nowadays widely used to estimate the resonance frequencies of geological structures (Bonnefoy-Claudet, 2006). However, often HVSR is also used to obtain information on the depth of the seismic bedrock and on thickness and seismic velocity of the process overburden deposits, using inversion techniques of the H/V curve (Fäh et al., 2003). This nevertheless produce results with large uncertainty intervals of parameters, and then must be necessarily constrained by detailed stratigraphic information. An application of HVSR inversion is presented in order to verify the effectiveness of this technique for purposes of…