7th November 2016
Today around 12 our colleague and friend Marco Mucciarelli passed away. He would have turned 57 on January 14th. The news immediately made the rounds of research centers, leaving us all stunned. Many have learned of his disappearance while they were in Rieti, on duty at the DI.COMA.C. (Command and Control Directorate of the Civil Protection Department), where in other times Marco would have been the basis for his measures and his organizational activities. But Marco had been ill for over a year now: very ill. He had undergone a large number of surgeries and had distanced himself from his research activities for several months now, leaving us all waiting for a "return on track" which however never came: until today's sad epilogue.
Geophysicist and seismologist of international renown, after a short period spent as a contract researcher at the University of Siena, starting in 1987 he worked for ISMES, a company of the ENEL Group, accumulating considerable experience in research applied to the safety of infrastructure at risk. In 1997 he had become a university professor and, starting from the following year, he had returned to being a full-time researcher, having been called as Associate Professor at the University of Basilicata. Since July 2012 he had then become director of the Seismological Research Center of OGS in Trieste (National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics). In this role he worked to overcome the historic – inevitable – rivalry between INGV and OGS, using the new Seismic Hazard Map of Italy as a meeting ground, still in preparation.
Marco's scientific career was accompanied by very intense experimental activity, which saw him always arrive among the first on the scene of some of the most disastrous earthquakes in the Mediterranean area: as in 1999, when in a few hours he decided to go and personally document the effects of the disastrous earthquake from Izmit, Turkey, traveling with his personal car and facing difficulties of all kinds. But Marco also liked to discuss in conference rooms: in 2014 he received the Keynote Lecturer award from the European Seismological Commission and the European Association of Earthquake Engineering, and since August 2014 he has been vice president of the European Seismological Commission. His presence in a scientific session guaranteed a lively and passionate discussion on a spectrum of topics ranging from seismic engineering to induced seismicity via historical seismology and the analysis of earthquake precursors. All conducted with that unmistakable accent of the Bolognese Apennines, with that boundless culture, with that wit and with that humor that made him immediately likable to anyone.
For some years Marco had embraced the idea that scientific dissemination could also take place through social networks: he had opened his own blog, which was very popular, and participated as a moderator in various professional forums. He had engaged in civil battles against what we now call "hoaxes" and in favor of the sustainability of the riskiest industrial activities. Following the same impetus towards research that was as useful as possible, he had promoted the “I don't risk” initiative, in cooperation with INGV on the one hand and with the Civil Protection Department on the other. His all-round activity often led him to clash with those who did not share his honest and almost naive approach to the solution of the great seismological controversies of our time, as in the case of the risks associated with the exploitation of hydrocarbons. But each of these controversies increasingly highlighted his great scientific rigor and inexhaustible human talents: he and his sympathy always won.
But today Marco has lost the last and most important of his battles, the one with a sneaky and ruthless evil. And for those like me who knew him as a friend, colleague and drinking companion, and who continue to deal with "earthquakes, seismology and other nonsense", as stated in the header of his blog, a truly unbridgeable chasm opens up.
Gianluca Valensise