ESCALATION of ERUPTION RISKS by EUROPEAN SUPERVOLCANO. Alarming Study on Nature Geoscience about Campi Flegrei after Strong EarthQuakes
According to government authorities and some experts from the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), there is no imminent danger of the eruption of the Campi Flegrei supervolcano, the seventh largest caldera in the world that could not only devastate the Naples area but also cause serious disruption throughout Central and Southern Italy due to the release of ash capable of at least causing the interruption of air travel (as happened in Iceland last summer).
“This variation, however, has a particular significance, because – net of the physiological instrumental uncertainty of the measurement – it would make that shock the most intense ever recorded in the instrumental era, therefore in the last 40 years or so, even if only slightly exceeding the earthquake of magnitude 4.4 that hit the Campi Flegrei on May 20, 2024”
The Dangerous Bradyseism of the Campi Flegrei
But a research published last January by the international scientific journal Nature Geoscience has raised the alarm on the risk of eruption by highlighting the signs of a phenomenon that could happen at any moment.
Well, this study was signed by Italian researchers from the INGV but it has not found much space in mainstream newspapers that follow the government strategy of not wanting to create alarmism despite the fact that there are now more than 300 displaced people in the Pozzuoli area, the closest to the mouth of the supervolcano, as we highlighted in our previous investigation.
In it we explained that the active supercaldera that is terrorizing the inhabitants of Naples has been characterized by bradyseism since 2005: that is, a periodic lowering or raising of the ground level, relatively slow on the human time scale but very fast compared to geological time.
“When the uplift speed increases, the system responds by producing a greater number of earthquakes at all scales, that is, both the number of small earthquakes and the number of stronger ones increase,” said Mauro Di Vito, director of the Vesuvian Observatory (INGV) and one of the most expert researchers on the volcano.
Bradyseismic intensity and earthquakes are, however, only two of the signs of the risk of magma rising and therefore of a possible eruption.
The third is that of gaseous emissions which represent a further danger factor
, in addition to the seismic and eruptive ones, of a geochemical nature “for the release of Co2 which, since it is heavier than air, especially in basements, can cause problems (too concentrated Co2 can also cause death and therefore it is extremely important to take control measures)” explains De Vito.
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