Crustal deformation data in the Northern Adriatic Sea area processed and made available for the first time to the entire scientific community.
A study, fruit of the collaboration between the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the University of Bologna and the Ministry of Economic Development, presents the results of the analysis of GPS data acquired by the permanent stations installed along the Adriatic coast and on ENI SpA's offshore oil platforms The work, Geopositioning time series from offshore platforms in the Adriatic Sea, just published in the Scientific Data journal of Nature, has made it possible to measure the deformation of the soil along the coast line and seabed in the Northern Adriatic Sea area, making the data freely available to the entire scientific community. The research activities were carried out within the 'Subsidence' project of the program "Clypea - Innovation Network for future Energy”, funded by the Ministry of Economic Development.
"The set of processed data”, explains Mimmo Palano, researcher at the INGV Etna Observatory and first author of the research, “can be considered "exceptional" because until now a database acquired in such extensive offshore areas had never been published. The data were analyzed using various scientific calculation programs in order to obtain the time series of the displacement of each station, highlighting a complex interaction between the regional sources of deformation, such as tectonics, and the local ones, of predominantly anthropogenic origin".
The analyzed dataset was acquired by GPS stations operating continuously, installed near 13 "storage centres" located along the Adriatic coast and 24 platforms for the production of hydrocarbons positioned in the northern Adriatic.
"These data", continues Giuseppe Pezzo, researcher at the INGV National Earthquake Observatory (ONT) and project manager, “are of fundamental importance to improve and promote further studies in coastal and marine contexts where there are different natural and anthropic processes that contribute to soil deformations. In particular, they will be essential in the coming years to carry out studies on the dynamics of the coastline and its impact on human activities and natural ecosystems. Furthermore, these data will allow us both to carry out monitoring and to develop forecasting models of subsidence. In the end”, concludes the researcher, "the data will contribute to studies on the tectonics of the Adriatic area with particular attention to the assessment of seismic hazard".
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Ground deformations in the northern Adriatic Sea: an invaluable database of GPS measurements from oil platforms
For the first time, crustal deformation data in the area of the Northern Adriatic Sea has been analyzed and made available to the scientific community.
The study, resulting from the collaboration between the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the University of Bologna and the Ministry of Economic Development, shows the results coming from the analysis data collected at GPS permanent stations installed along the Adriatic coast and on the offshore oil platforms of ENI SpA The study, Geopositioning time series from offshore platforms in the Adriatic Sea, published in Nature's Scientific Data journal, allowed to measure the ground deformation pattern along the coastal belt and the seabed in the Northern Adriatic Sea and also provided a free access to the scientific community of data processing results. The research activities were carried out as part of the 'Subsidences' project of the “Clypea - Innovation Network for future Energy” program, funded by the Ministry of Economic Development.
"The processed data set” - explains Mimmo Palano, researcher at the INGV - Osservatorio Etneo and first author of the research - “can be considered as unique since a so extensive spatial and temporal off-shore dataset haven't been publicly released until now. The data were analyzed using different scientific softwares in order to obtain the displacement time series for each station, highlighting a complex interaction between regional sources of deformation, such as the tectonics, and local causes, mainly related to anthropic activities”.
The analyzed dataset was acquired from GPS stations operating continuously, installed in 13 “storage centers” located along the Adriatic coast and on 24 hydrocarbon platforms located in the northern Adriatic.
“This data set”, continues Giuseppe Pezzo, researcher at the INGV - National Earthquake Observatory (ONT) and project manager, “is fundamental to improve and promote further studies in coastal and marine contexts where both natural and anthropopic processes contribute to the ground deformation. In particular, it will be fundamental to carry out further studies focused on the dynamics of the coastline and its impact on human activities and natural ecosystems. Furthermore, this dataset will allow us to carry out the monitoring of the subsidence process and to develop predictive ground deformation models. “Finally", concludes the researcher," the use of these data will contribute to studies related to the tectonics of the Adriatic area, also focusing on the seismic hazard evaluation".
Link to the study:
Link to the database:
Figure 1 - Horizontal land displacement rates, referred to the Eurasian plate, obtained from GPS stations installed on oil platforms. Boxes: zoom on the Calabria region and the Adriatic area. Figure extracted from the work of Palano et al. (2020), published in Scientific Data - NATURE.
(Figure 1 – Horizontal ground deformation rates, referred to Eurasia plate, from GPS stations installed on on-shore platforms. Insets: Calabria region and Adriatic area. Figures from the study of Palano et al. (2020), published on Scientific Data - NATURE.
Figure 2 - Vertical ground displacement rates obtained from GPS stations installed on oil rigs. Figure extracted from the work of Palano et al., 2020 published in the journal Scientific Data - NATURE
(Figure 2 - Vertical ground displacement rates from GPS stations installed on on-shore platforms. Figures from the study of Palano et al. (2020), published on Scientific Data - NATURE.