La rete sismica temporanea FXLand: contribuito al Progetto Fiber Optic Cable Use For Seafloor Studies Of Earthquake - FOCUS

Abstract

In 2018 the project FOCUS - Fiber Optic Cable Use For Seafloor Studies Of Earthquake - started coordinated by Marc-André Gutscher from the Laboratoire Géosciences Océan at the University of Brest, France. This project investigates the seismicity and the crustal structure of the Ionian Sea through the analysis and interpretation of data collected by underwater instrumentation and by monitoring networks either available or specifically deployed near the coast.
In this context, the Osservatorio Nazionale Terremoti (ONT) and the Osservatorio Etneo (OE) of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and the Laboratorio di Sismologia of the University of Calabria (UniCal), contributed to the installation of a temporary seismic network to integrate the permanent networks present in the Strait of Messina region and along the Sicilian-Calabrian Ionian coast. The new network, consisting of 13 stations, acquired data from December 2021 to June 2023.
In January 2022, the international partners of FOCUS project installed a temporary network of OBS seismometers and seabed pressure sensors. The integration of all these data is aimed to obtain the recording and localization of earthquakes in the Ionian Sea, with a detail never achieved in terms of small magnitudes and accuracy of the locations. The institutions involved in the project collaborate on data acquisition and processing, the imaging of the Earth’s interior with advanced techniques, data interpretation, and modeling. The large amount of data collected will improve seismic monitoring and knowledge relating to the Earth's structure of the investigated area with particular attention to seismogenic structures.
This work describes the design, installation and management of the temporary network "FXland" and provides information related to its functioning and the characteristics of the acquired dataset.