The Late Holocene to Pleistocene tephrostratigraphic record of Lake Ohrid (Albania)

We present in this work a tephrostratigraphic record from a sediment piston core (JO 2004) from Lake Ohrid. Five tephra layers were recognised, all from explosive eruptions of southern Italy volcanoes. A multidisciplinary study was carried out, including stratigraphy, AMS ¹⁴C chronology and geochemistry. The five tephra layers were correlated with terrestrial proximal counterparts and with both marine and lacustrine tephra layers already known in the central Mediterranean area. The oldest is from Pantelleria Island (P11, 131 ka BP). Other three tephra layers are from Campanian volcanoes: X6, Campanian Ignimbrite-Y5 and SMP1-Y3 (107, 39 and 31 ka BP respectively). The youngest tephra layer corresponds to the FL eruption from Etna Volcano (3.4 ka BP). In three cases these recognitions confirm previous findings in the Balkans, while two of them were for the first time recognised in the area, with a significant enlargement of the previous assessed dispersal areas.     

Mineralogical and geochemical spatial analyses of a waste-rock dump at the Libiola Fe–Cu sulphide mine (Eastern Liguria,Italy)

In this work, we investigated a 3 ha sulphide-bearing waste-rock dump (Libiola Mine, Italy) using mineralogical, geochemical, and geostatistical analyses. The dumped materials were highly heterogeneous in grain size and lithology and varied both laterally and vertically. Other than the host rock of the ore, basalts and serpentinites, the dumped materials contained high amounts of low-grade chalcopyrite- and pyrite-rich mineralisations. Due to these characteristics and to the absence of minerals able to neutralise acidity, this waste-rock dump can be classified as an acid mine drainage (AMD) producer. The study confirms that AMD is still active and, in the best scenario, can persist for up to 6.17 × 10³ years. The consequences of this process are of serious environmental concern as it involves strong acidification of the circulating waters, the release of potentially toxic metals into the soil, streams and rivers and the precipitation of huge quantities of secondary Fe-oxides and Fe-oxyhydroxides.     

The catalog of the meteorite collection of the Italian Museum of Planetary Sciences in Prato (Italy)

For the first time, this paper presents to the planetary scientists' community the catalog of the meteorite collection preserved at the Italian Museum of Planetary Sciences (Museo Italiano di Scienze Planetarie, henceforth MISP) in Prato (Italy). Founded in 2005, MISP is a type specimen official repository approved by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. It represents one of the few museums worldwide entirely devoted to planetary sciences. The catalog of its meteorite collection encompasses 430 meteorites for a total of 1536 specimens, including 291 thin sections, 184 thick sections, and 278 specimens that MISP has classified. Furthermore, MISP is currently classifying 57 other meteorites. Some samples were found during meteorite recovery expeditions in hot deserts, promoted by MISP in collaboration with diverse Italian universities and national research institutions. MISP also keeps an impact rocks collection comprising 257 samples. In a country like Italy, where most of the collected meteorites are housed in museums whose catalogs are not available online, the publication of the MISP meteorite collection catalog, together with the catalog of the impact rocks collection, represents not only a significant scientific primary source but also a remarkable tool for disseminating meteoritics to nonresearch audiences in educational activities and citizen science projects.     

A numerical Round Robin on tunnels under seismic actions

Although the seismic behaviour of shallow circular tunnels in soft ground is generally safer than aboveground structures, some tunnels were recently damaged during earthquakes. In some cases, damage was associated with strong ground shaking and site amplification, which increased the stress level in the tunnel lining. Pseudo-static and simplified dynamic analyses enable to assess transient changes in internal forces during shaking. Nevertheless, experimental evidences of permanent changes in internal loads in the tunnel lining would suggest that a full dynamic analysis including plastic soil behaviour should be performed when modelling the dynamic interaction between the tunnel and the ground. While sophisticated numerical methods can be used to predict seismic internal forces on tunnel structures during earthquakes, the accuracy of their predictions should be validated against field measurements, but the latter are seldom available. A series of centrifuge tests were therefore carried out at the University of Cambridge (UK) on tunnel models in sand, in the framework of a research project funded by the Italian Civil Protection Department. A numerical Round Robin on Tunnel Tests was later promoted among some research groups to predict the observed behaviour by means of numerical modelling. In this paper, the main results of five selected numerical predictions are summarized and compared with the experimental results.     

Numerical Modelling of the Anisotropic Mechanical Behaviour of Opalinus Clay at the Laboratory-Scale Using FEM/DEM

The Opalinus Clay (OPA) is an argillaceous rock formation selected to host a deep geologic repository for high-level nuclear waste in Switzerland. It has been shown that the excavation damaged zone (EDZ) in this formation is heavily affected by the anisotropic mechanical response of the material related to the presence of bedding planes. In this context, the purpose of this study is twofold: (i) to illustrate the new developments that have been introduced into the combined finite-discrete element method (FEM/DEM) to model layered materials and (ii) to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new modelling approach in simulating the short-term mechanical response of OPA at the laboratory-scale. A transversely isotropic elastic constitutive law is implemented to account for the anisotropic elastic modulus, while a procedure to incorporate a distribution of preferentially oriented defects is devised to capture the anisotropic strength. Laboratory results of indirect tensile tests and uniaxial compression tests are used to calibrate the numerical model. Emergent strength and deformation properties, together with the simulated damage mechanisms, are shown to be in strong agreement with experimental observations. Subsequently, the calibrated model is validated by investigating the effect of confinement and the influence of the loading angle with respect to the specimen anisotropy. Simulated fracture patterns are discussed in the context of the theory of brittle rock failure and analyzed with reference to the EDZ formation mechanisms observed at the Mont Terri Underground Research Laboratory.     

A peak acceleration threshold for soil liquefaction: lessons learned from the 2012 Emilia earthquake (Italy)

National and international seismic codes and recommendations provide criteria for liquefaction exclusion based on a peak ground acceleration (PGA) threshold value. In this paper, after a brief review of the procedures and the values suggested in those documents, a database of liquefaction case histories was created, exploiting the background data used in the most relevant verification charts, currently employed in research and professional practice. This dataset was used to identify, on the basis of simple statistical analyses, a PGA threshold on the free ground surface below which liquefaction is unlikely to occur, regardless of the geological site conditions. The calculated value, which is on the order of 0.07–0.1 g, based on the model employed to fit the data, was analyzed in light of information collected during the 2012 Emilia seismic sequence in Italy, which produced many liquefaction events triggered by low acceleration values. The case history of the Emilia earthquake advises setting a PGA threshold for code and recommendations at the lower probability level of occurrence, in the order of 1 %.     

On the prediction of the Toce alpine basin floods with distributed hydrologic models

With the objective of improving flood predictions, in recent years sophisticated continuous hydrologic models that include complex land‐surface sub‐models have been developed. This has produced a significant increase in parameterization; consequently, applications of distributed models to ungauged basins lacking specific data from field campaigns may become redundant. The objective of this paper is to produce a parsimonious and robust distributed hydrologic model for flood predictions in Italian alpine basins. Application is made to the Toce basin (area 1534 km²). The Toce basin was a case study of the RAPHAEL European Union research project, during which a comprehensive set of hydrologic, meteorological and physiographic data were collected, including the hydrologic analysis of the 1996–1997 period. Two major floods occurred during this period. We compare the FEST04 event model (which computes rainfall abstraction and antecedent soil moisture conditions through the simple Soil Conservation Service curve number method) and two continuous hydrologic models, SDM and TDM (which differ in soil water balance scheme, and base flow and runoff generation computations). The simple FEST04 event model demonstrated good performance in the prediction of the 1997 flood, but shows limits in the prediction of the long and moderate 1996 flood. More robust predictions are obtained with the parsimonious SDM continuous hydrologic model, which uses a simple one‐layer soil water balance model and an infiltration excess mechanism for runoff generation, and demonstrates good performance in both long‐term runoff modelling and flood predictions. Instead, the use of a more sophisticated continuous hydrologic model, the TDM, that simulates soil moisture dynamics in two layers of soil, and computes runoff and base flow using some TOPMODEL concepts, does not seem to be advantageous for this alpine basin. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Radio-silent isolated neutron stars as a new astronomical reality

Summary. As of today, seven X-ray sources have been tentatively identified as radio-quiet, isolated neutron stars. The family appears to be a rapidly growing one, although not all the objects have been identified with the same degree of certainty. The most convincing example of radio quiet pulsar is certainly Geminga, the neutron star nature of which, proposed in 1983 on the basis of its similarity with the Vela pulsar, has been firmly established with the discovery of its X and pulsation. Four more neutron star candidates, originally found in the Einstein data, have been confirmed by ROSAT, which has added to the list two more entries. All this is not the result of an unbiased search. The seven sources were not selected at random: four are inside supernova remnants, an obvious place to search for isolated neutron stars, while the remaining three were singled out because of some peculiarity. Intense -ray emission in the case of Geminga, very high X-ray counting rate for RXJ185635-3754, or being the brightest unidentified source in the Einstein medium sensitivity survey, MS 0317-6647. In spite of the limited number of objects and of the observational biases, these seven radio quiet neutron star candidates add valuable pieces of information to the observational panorama of known pulsars. Their properties, inferred from the X-ray emission, offer a coherent picture, pointing towards thermally emitting, cooling neutron stars. Received: April 1, 1996