ALBERT

Description: Jean Vogt was born in 1929 in Strasbourg (France), where he attended primary and secondary school. At the University of Strasbourg, he graduated in Geography, and majored in Geomorphology. His professor was the geographer Jean Tricart, who taught him the importance of both geological field work and archive investigation. In 1955 he joined the French West-Africa Geological Service and later the French Bureau for Geology and Mines (BRGM). Along the following 20 years he lived as a “geological” globetrotter in a number of countries, dispensing his time between the field and the archives. In these years, he was concerned mainly with mining geology, geomorphology, superficial deposits, and landslides. This unique experience led him in 1975 to the responsibility of the “Seismo-Tectonic Project”, the BRGM project in relation with the French nuclear power programme. From 1975 to 1984, he gave a substantial impulse to the study of French historical earthquakes, and since then he visited almost every public archive in France, and several major archives and libraries in Europe and abroad. He took care at the same time of the follow-up of macroseismic studies of present-day earthquakes. After he retired in 1984, he continued on a personal basis his investigations of historical earthquakes, in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Caribbean area. Alongside and for about 50 years, Jean Vogt investigated uninterruptedly the agrarian history of Northeastern France and Southwestern Germany. He published in scientific journals and in local learned societies bulletins more than 500 notes and articles devoted to a variety of subjects, such as soil erosion, agriculture, cattle trade, and social conflicts. Jean Vogt died on 5 June 2005 in Strasbourg. His scientific legacy consists of a wealth of published papers, manuscripts, documentation related to history and seismology, awaiting to be further exploited, as he would have done.

Description: Published

Description: 3-16

Description: 3.10. Sismologia storica e archeosismologia

Description: reserved

Description: While the seismicity of the Southern Alps is high in the Eastern sector, corresponding to the Veneto and Friuli regions, it decreases towards West up to the Adda River. In the sector between the Lessini Mts. and Eastern Friuli the damaging earthquakes are clustered in a well defined seismic belt, where seismogenic sources responsible for earthquakes with Mw 6 have been defined in recent works. In contrast, the knowledge of the Southalpine sector West of this area is sparser; the area experienced some earthquakes with Mw〉5.5 and varied events with 4.8≤Mw≤5.5 the distribution of which is, apparently, random. For the area roughly defined by the basins of the Adda River to the West and the middle Adige River to the East, this paper reappraises the background knowledge of the earthquakes occurred before 1700. The investigation and the results are presented according to two successive periods, up to 1995 and from 1995 on. In the research performed up to 1995, the most important achievements concerned two different aspects: i) the assessement of several “fake quakes”, some of which were the object of paradigmatic case-histories; ii) the resizing and relocation of several, presumed damaging earthquakes. Though this round of investigation changed significantly the picture of the seismicity with respect to the Seventies, the research continued. For the period from 1995 on, the discussion focuses on the reliability of the available information; material that received little or no consideration before, new historical findings and comments to the seismological interpretation as in the most recent literature are also presented. This part includes also the discussion of archaeoseismological evidence of damage related to past earthquakes.

Description: Published

Description: 93-129

Description: 3.10. Sismologia storica e archeosismologia

Description: reserved

Description: Scientific investigations in Antarctica are, for many different reasons, a challenging and fascinating task. Measurements, observations and field operations must be carefully planned well in advance and the capacity of successfully meeting the goals of a scientific project is often related to the capacity of forecasting and anticipating the many different potential mishaps. In order to do that, experience and logistic support are crucial. On the scientific side, the team must be aware of its tasks and be prepared to carry out observations in a hostile environment: both technology and human resources have to be suitably selected, prepared, tested and trained. On the logistic side, nations, institutions and any other organisation involved in the expeditions must ensure the proper amount of competence and practical support. The history of modern Italian Antarctic expeditions dates back to the middle 80’s when the first infrastructures of “Mario Zucchelli Station”, formerly Terra Nova Bay Station, were settled at Terra Nova Bay, Northern Victoria Land. Only a few years later, the first geodetic infrastructures were planned and built. Italian geodetic facilities and activities were, ever since, being constantly maintained and developed. Nowadays, the most remarkable geodetic infrastructures are the permanent Global Positioning System (GPS) station (TNB1) installed at Mario Zucchelli and the GPS geodetic network Victoria Land Network for DEFormation control (VLNDEF) entirely deployed on an area extending between 71° S and 76° S and 160° E and 170° E. These facilities do not only allow carrying out utmost geodetic investigations but also posses interesting capacities on the international multidisciplinary scientific scenario. In order to fully exploit their potentiality, management and maintenance of the infrastructure are crucial; nevertheless, in order to perform high quality scientific research, these abilities must be coupled with the knowledge concerning a proper use and a correct processing of the information that these infrastructures can provide. This work focuses on the different methods that can be applied to process the observations that are performed with GPS technique in Northern Victoria Land, aiming at reaching the highest accuracy of results and assuring the larger significance and versatility of the processing outcomes. Three software were used for the analysis, namely: Bernese v.5.0, Gipsy/Oasis II and Gamit/Globk. The working data sets are (i) the permanent GPS station TNB1 observations continuously performed since 1998 and (ii) the five episodic campaigns performed on the sites of VLNDEF. The two infrastructures can be regarded as neat examples of standard geodetic installation in Antarctica. Therefore, the technological solutions that were adopted and applied for establishing the GPS permanent station and the VLNDEF geodetic network as well as the data processing strategies and the data analysis procedures that were tested on their observation will be illustrated in detail. The results will be presented, compared and discussed. Furthermore, their potentials and role in geodetic research will be carefully described; their versatility will also be highlighted in the foreground of a multidisciplinary Antarctic international scientific activity.

Description: Published

Description: 37-72

Description: 1.8. Osservazioni di geofisica ambientale

Description: reserved