Geophysics and cultural heritage. A living field of research for Italian geophysicists

If one reads the World Heritage List 2002/2003, (http:// whc.unesco.org/archive/WHList02-ENG.pdf), a datum comes out with evidence: 12 countries have 253 World Heritage Sites (WHS) and all the 125 member countries have 586 WHS. Within these 12 countries Italy has 35 WHS corresponding to about 6% of the whole, followed by Spain, 5.8%, France, 4.6%, and the tenth has less than 2% of WHS. Cultural heritage is one of the greatest riches of Italy. Europe, with China, is the land which has the most stratified history in the world, and Italy is likely to still have undiscovered settlements dating from the prehistoric age to the 18th century. Some areas are totally unexplored, others have been only…