Mapping Subsurface Conductivity: Challenges and Progress in Italy's MARGE Project

Giulia Pignatiello; Igino Coco; Michele De Girolamo; Manuele Di Persio; Fabio Giannattasio; Valerio Materni; Luca Miconi; Massimo Miconi; Giovanna Lucia Piangiamore; Gerardo Romano; Valentina Romano; Lucia Santarelli; Vincenzo Sapia; Sabina Spadoni; Simona Tripaldi; Roberta Tozzi; Agata Siniscalchi; Paola De Michelis

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18165

[Back] [Session ERE1.9]

EGU24-18165, updated on 11 Mar 2024

https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18165

EGU General Assembly 2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Mapping Subsurface Conductivity: Challenges and Progress in Italy's MARGE Project

Giulia Pignatiello¹, Igino Coco², Michele De Girolamo², Manuele Di Persio², Fabio Giannattasio², Valerio Materni², Luca Miconi², Massimo Miconi², Giovanna Lucia Piangiamore², Gerardo Romano¹, Valentina Romano², Lucia Santarelli², Vincenzo Sapia², Sabina Spadoni², Simona Tripaldi¹, Roberta Tozzi², Agata Siniscalchi¹, and Paola De Michelis²

Giulia Pignatiello et al.

¹Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e Geoambientali, Italy
²Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Roma, Italy

In Italy, the MARGE initiative, an abbreviation for Geoelectromagnetic Risk Map for Central Italy, strives to create an extensive map of subsurface electrical conductivity by analyzing natural electric and magnetic fields.

Led by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in collaboration with the University of Bari and the Institute of Environmental Analysis Methodologies at CNR, his project involves establishing measurement points distributed on a grid spaced approximately 50 km apart.

However, this endeavor faces significant challenges in the central region of the Italian peninsula due to extensive urbanization, numerous electromagnetic disturbances from railways and high-voltage power lines, and challenging topography, making finding suitable land parcels a complex task.

The MARGE project aims to gather broad-band and long-term magnetotelluric data, focusing on two primary objectives: utilizing magnetotelluric data to outline large-scale lithospheric structures in the Central Apennines and developing maps of the geoelectric field in Central Italy to support Space Weather modeling and critical infrastructure vulnerability analysis.

Presenting our initial findings, we discuss encountered challenges and potential solutions identified in this ongoing project.

How to cite: Pignatiello, G., Coco, I., De Girolamo, M., Di Persio, M., Giannattasio, F., Materni, V., Miconi, L., Miconi, M., Piangiamore, G. L., Romano, G., Romano, V., Santarelli, L., Sapia, V., Spadoni, S., Tripaldi, S., Tozzi, R., Siniscalchi, A., and De Michelis, P.: Mapping Subsurface Conductivity: Challenges and Progress in Italy's MARGE Project, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-18165, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18165, 2024.