Looking inside Mt. Vesuvius

Italy's Mt.Vesuvius has been slumbering for a long time, but its silence could preface an eruption with potentially disastrous ef-fects for 600,000 people living on the vol-cano's slopes. To assess the scenario of the next eruption, the National Group of Vol-canology (GNV) of the Italian National Coun-cil of Researches (CNR) has fostered research aimed at mitigating eruption risk to the densely populated area. In this framework, researchers have gathered high-resolution seismic tomography data to better under-stand the internal structure of Mt. Vesuvius. The experiments were carried out during the last 4 years. The data will be used in three-dimen-sional modeling of the structure of Mt. Vesu-vius and underlying upper crust. Seismic velocities and attenuation and density con-trasts will be calculated, with special empha-sis on the delineation of significant magma reservoirs of more than 1 km in diameter. In modeling Mt. Vesuvius, tools are being devel-oped for using seismogram information to ob-tain high-quality seismic imaging of heterogeneous structures such as volcanoes