A hot week in the Sicilian autumn, over one hundred scientists from all over the world, a breathtaking panorama that from the deep blue of the Aeolian Islands accompanies the gaze to the summit of Etna. These were the fundamental ingredients of the International Conference of Gas Geochemistry - ICGG15, the fifteenth edition of the International Conference on Gas Geochemistry which was held in Milazzo, in the province of Messina, during the first week of October. A forum that every two years brings together the leading experts in the sector from around the world to discuss the latest research and the applications of a "science that cuts across all sciences", the geochemistry of gases, in the volcanic, seismic and environmental fields.
In Milazzo, in a corner of Sicily full of suggestions and inspirations for the mind and the palate, in the shade of prickly pears and inebriated by the scent of almonds and pistachios, the ICGG15 congress participants were transported to a on a human scale, far from the logic of large urban centres, to dedicate the entire week to progress and scientific and cultural exchange. All within the thirteenth-century walls of the fortified citadel of the city, which since the Middle Ages has seen the Swabians, Aragonese, Spanish, Austrians and Bourbons alternate in its castle, up to act as a noble backdrop to the meetings of the Sicilian Parliament.
Francesco Italiano, Director of the Palermo Section of INGV and organizer of the Conference, tells us about the spirit and the results of the international assembly.
Franco, how would you define the International Conference of Gas Geochemistry?
This is the only worldwide conference that brings together all the gas geochemistry experts every two years to discuss topics that cut across all sciences, from the "classic" ones such as the Earth sciences that concern volcanoes, earthquakes and the environment up to medicine and beyond.
The previous edition in 2017 was held in Poland. 2019 saw the return to Italy after 14 years: a recognition of our research.
The ICGG is a biennial congress that has been organized since 1982. This year, for the fifteenth edition, the Scientific Council wanted to organize it in Italy where it hadn't been since 2005. The interesting thing, index of the great attention that is paid by the organization of the Congress to our country, is that we were asked to reorganize it in the same way as fourteen years ago: therefore starting from the INGV headquarters in Palermo and then moving to the suggestive Castle of Milazzo.
Why exactly Milazzo?
Because from the Keep of the Fortified Citadel of Milazzo it is possible to cover, with a single glance, the “physical” representation of all the topics dealt with by the ICGG: the volcanoes, since we are between Etna and the Aeolian Islands; earthquakes, as we are among the active structures of Messina and the Gulf of Patti; and the environment, with the industrial area of Milazzo being one of the highest risk industrial areas in the whole of Sicily.
What is the balance sheet of this edition?
It's a great budget! This year the ICGG15 registered the highest number of participants, with 124 registered from all over the world: Chinese, Japanese, Americans, Canadians, Chileans, Indians, Turks… But Europe was definitely well represented too!
And from a scientific point of view, what did the forum represent?
It was a great laboratory of ideas. An interesting fact to experience the success of this edition was that, for the first time, we were "forced" to plan parallel sessions to guarantee all those who requested it the opportunity to present their own presentation Oral!
During the Congress, a special volume dedicated to the previous edition was presented and published in the journal “Geofluids” with me among the editors. It was a rather "severe" job, in the sense that of the more than 40 contributions received, only 21 were accepted. We also managed to publish in time on “INGV Miscellaneous” all the abstracts submitted for ICGG15 and we plan to publish two more special volumes dedicated to this edition, one on “Frontiers” and the other on “Chemical Geology”.
ISPRA (Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) has also decided to fix during the Congress the working table linked to the agreement with INGV whose central themes are the systematic collection and sharing of data on geodynamic interest and the study of hydro-geochemical monitoring models for the integrated analysis of geological hazards. Lastly, the Steering Committee of the Italy-Malta "BESS" (Pocket Beach Management & Remote Surveillance System) project also met during ICGG15, which has the aim of drafting a Management Manual useful for planning interventions in favor of marine-coastal of the two countries.
The Congress was also a breeding ground for new institutional collaborations...
Two above all, demonstrating the great attraction that the event had: the collaboration agreement was signed between the Palermo Section of INGV and the Institute of Earthquake Forecasting of China Earthquake Administration (IEF-CEA) which provides for personnel exchanges and joint activities for the geochemistry of fluids in Italian and Chinese seismic areas. Furthermore, given the conspicuous presence of gas geochemistry experts at ICGG15, Thermo Fisher Scientific, one of the largest scientific instrument companies in the world, sent its President of the Bremen Office with the intention of bringing together around twenty specialists in the sector in a round table to plan future company research and development activities in order to satisfy the requests of us researchers who, from an instrumental point of view, find ourselves asking industry for ever more "specialized" instruments.
During ICGG15 you managed to reconcile the more properly congressional sessions with field trips to the Aeolian Islands and Etna. How did these go "field trips"?
In the first field trip scientific, that to the Aeolian Islands, all the congress participants were made to board a boat that took them to Vulcano, Panarea and Stromboli. A first stop was made in Vulcano with the disembarkation of the participants and a visit to the crater accompanied by guides from the Palermo section of the INGV; in Panarea, on the other hand, off to snorkeling to closely observe the "bubbles" typical of the underwater hydrothermal springs that characterize the island; unfortunately it was not possible for us to dock in Stromboli for obvious safety reasons linked to recent volcanic activity, but we made a stop at sunset in front of the Sciara del Fuoco (that is, the depression into which the Stromboli lava flows flow) to observe the explosions of the volcano. I must say that I saw strong emotions in the eyes of those researchers who had never witnessed live volcanic activity before.
The second one field trip, however, concerned the last day of the Congress, during which we climbed Mount Etna. However, by chance that very day the volcano resumed intense explosive activity at the summit craters, so we had to exclude the possibility of climbing to the top. However, we managed to get to the Rifugio Sapienza, at about 2.500 meters above sea level, where INGV guides accompanied the congress attendees to visit some temporary craters on the sides of the volcano, illustrating the characteristics of the eruptive activity in progress and the monitoring activities that the Institute carries out constantly.
What is “cooking” for the future?
As for the future, the International Scientific Committee of the ICGG has already met and established two things that are very important to us. The first is that the Committee itself will be expanded with new colleagues and - for the first time - colleagues representing other scientific realities and other nations: we had applications from Israel, Canada, Iceland, the United States and Vietnam.
Furthermore, we have defined that the next edition of the Congress, i.e. ICGG16, will take place in Turkey: clearly the program can be revised on the basis of the evolution of the crisis on the border with Syria, given that the area "chosen" by the Scientific Committee was that of old Antioch; possibly, an alternative destination proposed for the next edition would be Vietnam. In any case, therefore, also ICGG16 promises to be an absolutely stimulating Congress!