Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra

PICVOLC is a project supported by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 793811. The project aims at combining many geophysical methodologies to reveal the internal structures of volcanoes, to support decisions to implement a monitoring network, and to identify possible sources of unrest signals that are detected at the surface. PICVOLC involves national and international collaboration, both academic and non-academic: Sapienza University of Rome, research institutes (IREA and INGV), and volcano observatories (Colombia Geological Survey and U.S. Geological Survey). The project includes activities of research, dissemination, and outreach.
 

General view of the project and relocation of hypocenters recorded during 2016-2019 at Nevado del Ruiz volcano.

PICVOLC´s multi-/interdisciplinary nature aims to better constrain the conceptual and numerical models of volcanic unrest and to reduce the ambiguity in the identification of the location, depth, volume change, and nature of the source of volcano unrest. PICVOLC involves the integration of fieldwork with Finite Element Methods modeling and numerical inversions of geodetic and geophysical data. The goal of the project is to find methodologies that integrate seismic, gravity, and deformation data with a 3D numerical inversion to create a detailed representation of the source of volcanic unrest. The current volcanic unrest at Nevado del Ruiz volcano (Colombia) is taken as a case study to implement, calibrate, and verify the inverse models. Nevado del Ruiz is a very active volcano that is constantly monitored because of the many potential volcanic hazards. In 1985, a lahar generated by a modest eruption of Ruiz destroyed the town of Armero, killing 25,000 people.
 

Ash and gas plume of Nevado del Ruiz volcano and collection of gravity data around Olleta volcano during the gravimetric campaign in May 2019.

Fieldwork for PICVOLC is dedicated to the collection of gravity data through structural gravity campaigns at the active Nevado del Ruiz volcano with the support of the Colombian Geological Survey – Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Manizales (OVSM). About two hundred new gravity measurements were collected on the volcano along paved roads and mountain paths that offered safe access to the volcano edifice within an area of about 23 km2, from an altitude of about 2000 m to a maximum of about 5000 m a.s.l. Measurement sites were reached by car or on foot carrying the equipment along the paths and stopping about every 500 m when possible. Because of limited accessibility, it was not possible to cover some areas.
 

3-day workshop on volcano modeling in Cali (Colombia) and presentation of the gravimetric campaign at GNGTS conference (Rome).

The dissemination activities of PICVOLC include seminars, workshops, and presentations of the research at national and international conferences. PICVOLC offered a 3-day workshop about modeling volcano deformation with the Finite Element Method (FEM) for the personnel of all Colombian Volcano Observatories. The goal was to provide the researchers of the observatories with a tool and experience to investigate the cause of detected surface deformation using FEMs. We dedicated three full days to learn how to build 2D and 3D finite element models to simulate volcanic deformation due to different sources of deformation (i.e. reservoir inflation, magma intrusions within dykes, and slip along faults). The models were then used to investigate the effects of material properties (i.e. type and distribution), source shape, and topography on deformation. PICVOLC research has been presented at the 2019 meeting of Gruppo Nazionale di Geofisica della Terra Solida (GNGTS) in Rome and at the online EGU 2021.
 

Workshops at EuroScience Open Forum 2020 and Maker Faire Trieste 2021.

The outreach activities of PICVOLC include exhibits, workshops, and webinars. Within the EuroScience Open Forum ESOF2020 framework (Triest), PICVOLC offered an exhibit and a workshop about volcano deformation addressed to the general public of all ages. With the help of an ARSandbox, the visitors learned how crucial the collection of satellite and ground geodetic data is to monitor the unrest of volcanic areas and how significant the modeling process is to understand volcano dynamics. PICVOLC had the honor to be part of a jury of experts for selecting the best stories for the Scientific Literary Award “Parole di Scienza,” in which high school students from the province of Rome participated with their short stories about scientific topics of current interest for society such as earthquakes, pollution, evolution, or magnetism, among many others.
At the SciFabLab (ICTP, Triest), PICVOLC started to produce the material used for outreach activities that aim to convey the importance of modeling natural systems to advance our understanding of how they work and to predict their possible effects on the surrounding environment and the population.
So far, the materials produced have been used for workshops such as the one presented at the international Maker Faire Trieste 2021 “Il vulcano si muove: volcano alert!”, and a webinar in Italian “Modellare i vulcani” in the program for schools of the “NET Notte dei Ricercatori in Italia 2021” within The European Researchers' Night 2021. A more in-depth description of PICVOLC’s outreach activities can be found in a blog dedicated to PICVOLC (https://erikaronchin.wordpress.com/picvolc/)