In the area hit by the 1980 earthquake, the researchers from the Institute of Geology and Volcanology (INGV) and the Federico II University of Naples have set up an Observatory, the Irpinia Near Fault Observatory (NFO), to monitor the underlying fault system.
The Observatory, implemented within the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) and recently funded by the PNRR Monitoring Earth’s Evolution and Tectonics (MEET) project, will help better understand the genesis of earthquakes in the area hit by one of the most devastating earthquakes in Italy.
The project has two main goals: on the one hand to transform single seismic stations into constellations of stations capable of capturing local microseismicity even with extremely low magnitudes and, on the other hand, to test the potential of the normal telecommunication optical fiber to act as a seismic sensor.
The first image obtained from this test has already shown that using optical fibre for seismic monitoring is the scientific challenge of the future. This image provides, for the first time, a “photograph” of the dynamics of the Irpinia fault system that opens up to new studies and new interpretations to better understand the genesis of earthquakes and better manage the risk of earthquakes.
“Irpinia is the ideal place to test these new technological systems thanks to the parametric networks largely available in this area which will allow us to analyze the new data obtained, verify them and understand their potential”, Gaetano Feast, professor at Federico II University of Naples Department of Physics.
