Integrated monitoring of the Earth System in Spain: Seismic network of observation and research

Explora, Caracteriza y Visualiza

El objetivo del proyecto es el desarrollo de sistemas de reconocimiento del terreno con técnicas geofísicas, para su aplicación al reconocimiento previo de la zona del frente de avance en construcción de túneles con la resolución requerida para anticipar la existencia de cambios en las propiedades del terreno y/o estructuras geológicas o potenciales vías de circulación de fluidos.

Investigación y monitorizacion de fallas sismogenicas en sondeos para la elaboracion de una propuesta de perforación al ICDP para perforacion en el SE peninsular

Researchers

• Maria Jose Jurado Rodriguez, ICTJA-CSIC, Barcelona, España

PROJECT INFO

• Project Leader: Maria Jose Jurado Rodriguez

Network of European Research Infrastructures for Earthquake Risk Assessment and Mitigation

NERA (2010-2014) is an EC infrastructure project that integrates key research infrastructures in Europe for monitoring earthquakes and assessing their hazard and risk.

1^stInternational Congress on Management and awareness in protected volcanic landscapes (VOLCANDPARK)

This Action is addressed to contribute organizing and hosting the first international meeting on protected volcanic landscapes, which aims to organize a discussion forum on the management, dissemination and tourism in protected volcanic areas, in order to share experiences of agencies and people who manage and work in protected volcanic areas, identify how scientists and extension workers communicate and interpret the knowledge derived from protected volcanic areas, and to collect and disseminate experiences on management , education and geo-tourism in protected volcanic area.

Propiedades físicas de la litosfera en la Zona Centro Ibérica (Península Ibérica)

The lithosphere beneath the Central Iberian Zone (CIZ) features different character and nature than the lithosphere beneath the southwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula (Ossa Morena and South-Portuguese Zones, OMZ and SPZ).

Propiedades ópticas de materiales optoelectrónicos y fotovoltaicos

The advances in solid state lighting and laser technologies have brought about a tremendous expansion of the optoelectronic marke. The blue and near ultraviolet range of the spectrum is well covered by GaN, Ga-rich InGaN and AlGaN alloys. In the blue to green range InxGa1-xN alloys with x< 0.3 play a dominant role. The revision of the band-gap value of InN (0.64 eV) triggered a worldwide research thrust into narrow-band-gap III-nitride alloy systems which cover the spectral region from 1.9 μm (InN) up to 0.36 μm (GaN) and 0.2 μm (AlN). These materials are attracting much interest for their applications in optical communications and photovoltaics. The performance enhancement expected in nanostructures has also driven a surge in research on group-III nanocolumns (NC) and quantum well (QW) structures. Despite the success in achieving device operation, many fundamental properties of these systems are still poorly known.

Volcanic Unrest in Europe and Latin America: Phenomenology, eruption precursors, hazard foreCast, and risk mitigatiOn

Our knowledge of the causative links between subsurface processes, resulting unrest signals and imminent eruption, today, is inadequate to deal effectively with crises of volcanic unrest.The VUELCO project consortium has come together for a multi-disciplinary attack on the origin, nature and significance of volcanic unrest from the scientific contributions generated by collaboration of ten partners in Europe and Latin America. Dissecting the science of monitoring data from unrest periods at six type volcanoes in Italy, Spain, the West Indies, Mexico and Ecuador the consortium will create global strategies for 1) enhanced monitoring capacity and value, 2) mechanistic data interpretation and 3) identification of reliable eruption precursors; all from the geophysical, geochemical and geodetic fingerprints of unrest episodes.

Structural evolution in oblique convergent margins: from the Intra-oceanic subduction to the arc-continent collision and subsequent Intraplate transpression

Main aim of the project deals with the structural evolution that takes place at oblique convergent margins from the reconstruction of the intra-oceanic subduction zone, the study of the processes that form the arc-continent accretionary-collisional complex, and the understanding of the subsequent transpressive intraplate tectonics. The northern part of the Caribbean Plate is an extraordinary laboratory for this kind of studies.

Evolución de la NAO durante los últimos 15000 años en la Península Ibérica y en Azores, a partir del estudio de registros lacustres y datos climáticos instrumentales

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are two of the main climate modes that rule the globe natural climate variability on interannual and longer time scales. At multiannual scale, NAO oscillations accounts for more of the 50 % of the winter rainfall variance in northwestern Iberian meteorological stations. This climate mode also rules other climatic and environmental variables that have a direct impact on the terrestrial ecosystems like the plant growing season, the plant flowering period length, the tree ring growth and the location and development of many invertebrate, amphibian and bird species. NAO also has a strong and direct influence on lacustrine ecosystems through many ways, such as on lake water temperature, hydrological balance, and nutrient input and hence over the phytoplankton and zooplankton and therefore the whole food web. Despite the importance of this climate phenomenon for Europe, only some historical reconstructions based on documentary evidences and tree rings covering the last 1,500 years and few long-term (millennial scale) reconstructions using terrestrial sedimentary records of the NAO fluctuations have been carried out. Surprisingly, few multiproxy reconstructions of the NAO evolution have been conducted in the Azores islands, albeit being located in one end of the dipole. These NAO millennial-scale studies using terrestrial sedimentary archives are almost absent for the Iberian Peninsula though first attempts are currently in progress.

The nature of lithospheric-mantle beneath Alpine orogenic belts – A comparison between Atlas, Zagros and Tibet from numerical approaches

The aim of this project is to study the present lithospheric structure of three anomalous regions along the Alpine-Himalayan belt: The Atlas, Tibet and the Zagros mountains.

Volcanic hazard assessment at Deception Island

Deception Island is the most active volcano of the South Shetland Islands (Antarctica) with more than twenty eruptions recognised over the past two centuries. This recent volcanic activity is characterised by monogenetic eruptions of low volume and short duration.  The eruptions show a variable degree of explosivity, strombolian or phreatomagmatic, with a VEI 2 to 4, which have generated a wide variety of pyroclastic deposits and lava flows. Tephra record preserved in the surrounding glaciers or in marine sediments show the explosive power of the phreatomagmatic phases and the wide dispersal of its finest products in a great variety of directions of the prevailing winds. Despite the clear indications of its high volcanic activity and eruptive recurrence, no accurate volcanic hazard assessment has been carried out in the island, yet.

Determinación de la edad y peligrosidad del volcán de la Crosa de Sant Dalmai (Girona)

We have determined the age and internal structure of the Crosa de Sant Dalmai volcano (Girona), the largest Quaternary volcano of the Iberian Peninsula and one of the best preserved, combining mechanical drilling 60 m, geological mapping, detailed geophysical studies and palynological studies and C14 dating of pre-and post-eruptive sediments.

Understanding the plutonic-volcanic connection in supervolcanoes

This project aims to develop a multidisciplinary research aimed to reconstruct a physico-chemical tomography of the plutonic-volcanic system in supervolcanoes. This sub-project concentrates on the study of the relation between silicic magma chambers and large collapse calderas and will study the characteristics of magma reservoirs that feed superuptions. Thought the study of eruption products of selected case studies (Permo-Carboniferous volcanism of the Catalan Pyrenees, Spain; Bolaños caldera, Mexico; Aguas Calientes caldera, Argentine)and the application of experimental and mathematical models, we will investigate the following fundamental aspects relative to the evolution of magma in silicic reservoirs: crystallisation, mixing, convection, and fragmentation, which we consider constitute usual parts of the full process in large-silicic caldera formation and evolution. In addition to the thermodynamic approach that we need to follow to characterise these processes we will also investigate the variation of magma rheology during each process and the mechanics of the host rock during magma chamber growth, rupture and subsequent eruption. The results obtained will give a more precise picture on the dynamics of large silicic magma chambers and associated calderas, and will contribute to the co-ordinated project by providing the analysis of the volcanic complex in the proposed reconstruction of a physico-chemical tomography of the plutonic-volcanic system in supervolcanoes

Determinación experimental de propiedades geológicas de magmas de baja viscosidad del Teide: Investigación preliminar sobre su importancia en la dinámica eruptiva

The main objective of this project was to complete the studies conducted during the project EXPLOTEI (MICINN, CGL2008-04264), with experimental research on the role of the composition and volatile content on physical properties such as viscosity and elasticity modules of low viscosity magmas from Teide, and to study the influence of this rheology on its explosive and effusive eruptions.

Investigación y monitorización de fallas sismogenicas en sondeos para la elaboración de una propuesta de perforación al ICDP para perforación en el SE Peninsular

Researchers

• Maria Jose Jurado Rodriguez, ICTJA-CSIC, Barcelona, España, Investigadora Principal
• José Crespo Cadórniga, ICTJA-CSIC, Barcelona, España

PROJECT INFO

• Project Leader: Maria Jose Jurado Rodriguez

European Plate Observing System

The European Plate Observing System (EPOS) is the integrated solid Earth Sciences research infrastructure approved by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and included in the ESFRI Roadmap in December 2008. EPOS is a long-term integration plan of national existing RIs.

Procesos de colisión Arco-Continente en Taiwan

The project PROTAI will integrate new surface geological observations with passive-source (earthquake) seismic data to study the crustal structure, physical properties (Vp, Vs, density) and the tectonic processes in the active arc-continent collision that is taking place between the Luzon arc and the continental margin of Eurasia in Taiwan. Research on the Taiwan orogen will be integrated with the results of previous research of the group into arc-continent collision in fossil orogens, as well as with its research into petrophysical properties of the curst and upper mantle. The research is focused into three main themes:

Environmental impacts of Quaternary eruptions in the Central Andes: modeling for the prevention of the effects of future eruptions

Many volcanic eruptions have occurred during the Quaternary in the Andes and particularly in the area of northern Argentina and Chile with the generation of environmental impacts of diverse magnitude. QUECA Project is addressed to the analysis of the environmental impact of Quaternary eruptions of the central Andes, with particular consideration of the Holocene events by the involvement of men, to extract patterns to model the prediction and prevention of the effects of future eruptions in environment, focusing on its geographic and temporal scope. The average rate is about one eruption per year  in the Southern Cone. Project is focused in  the most factible scenarios, including those that have a local impact, effusive (lava fields that can affect human sttlemensts and agricultural fields and water courses, by deviation or interruption), and regional impacts due to explosive eruptions (ash deposits).

Cross-border network of instruments and experts for the determination and management of water, carbon and energy fluxes and stocks in agricultural and grassland ecosystems of the Pyrenees, in a context of climate and land-use changes

FLUXPYR is a network of infrastructures and multidisciplinary experts from France, Spain and Andorra who contribute to the evaluation and management of the impacts of climate and landuse changes on Pyrenean ecosystems and their inhabitants.

Structure and low-temperature thermochronology in the western Cantabrian Mountains

The objective of this proposal is to determine the structure and thermal evolution, uplift and exhumation history of upper crustal rocks in the western Cantabrian Mountains. The aim of the project is to obtain models of landscape evolution that help identify the implication and interactions of key acting upper crustal processes that control mountain growth next to an incipient subduction margin. The research proposes the integration of structural, geomorphological and thermocronological studies in the western Cantabrian Mountains. The region is underlined by Variscan basement uplifted during the Cenozoic compression along the northern margin of the Iberian plate. The compresion caused limited shortening in the upper crust and limited subduction along the margin. The landscape of the western Cantabrian Mountains is at an early stage of mountain growth and may have been evolving during the past 50 Ma next to a very slow convergent margin.