On-site workshop: Volcanic Information System (VIS) – Remote infrasound monitoring of volcanic eruptions
Date: Thursday, 28 Aug 2025, 09:00 to Friday, 29 Aug 2025, 15:30 CEST
Location: On-site workshop in Florence, Italy
Timeline:
29.04.2025: Opening of registration
01.06.2025: Registration deadline (23:59 CEST)
mid June 2025: Notification to applicants
Speakers: Rodrigo De Negri (OPGC-LMV, UCA and CNRS), Philippe Labazuy (OPGC-LMV, UCA and CNRS), Emanuele Marchetti(UNIFI), Duccio Gheri (INGV), Patrick Hupe (BGR), Alexis Le Pichon (CEA), Peter Näsholm (NORSAR)
Contact: vis.workshop.firenze
gmail.com
Research fields: Infrasound, volcanoes, volcanic hazards mitigation, eruption monitoring, civil aviation risks
Target audience: Primarily PhD and Postdoc research fellows and other early-career scientists, as well as MSc who want to learn about how volcanic eruptions pose a risk for civil aviation, and how it is possible to monitor such eruptions with acoustic signals from the volcano. Scientists who may be interested in remote monitoring volcanic eruptions and/or may be interested in using VIS in the future or collaborating in its development.
Scope: Provide knowhow on long-range infrasound detections of major explosive eruptions at regional and global scale. Favour scientific exchanges between infrasound and volcano monitoring communities.
Learning goals:
- Learn about infrasound and volcanoes: how volcanoes produce infrasound, how infrasound propagates over long distances, how infrasound can be exploited for remote volcano monitoring.
- Infrasound measurement, array signal processing, infrasound propagation, detection catalogues, automatic processing and data products.
- Learn about the risks ash plumes can pose to civil aviation. Get familiarised with the volcanic explosivity index (VEI) and VEI>2 eruption properties.
- Building a Volcanic Information System (VIS): introducing the concept, its components and learning how these work together.
- VIS: understand how VIS operates based on an example case with historical data and real-time data from Amiata.
- VIS: complete hands-on implementation and numerical experiments, including the calculation of the Infrasound Parameter (IP) and the generation of alerts for specific events and/or calculate the IP based on real-time data.
Description: There are about 1,500 historically active volcanoes in the world, but only a small fraction of them (~10%) are monitored in real-time. Moreover, eruptions that generate ash plumes posing a risk to civil aviation (at altitudes of ~10 km and higher) can occur every few months worldwide, increasing the hazards of an unmonitored event. This workshop focuses on the advances in long-range infrasound detection, association, and characterization of volcanic eruptions within the framework of the Volcanic Information System (VIS), a tool originally developed in the framework of the EU-funded ARISE projects for real-time global infrasound monitoring of volcanic eruptions. The workshop introduces VIS, explains how it works, showcases the current state of VIS and its next steps, as well as highlights opportunities for future research.
Prerequisites: Programming knowledge in data/signal processing, Python or Matlab, as well as basic knowledge in shell scripting. The hands-on exercises will be performed step-by-step and include a more challenging final data analysis and event detection task.
Requirements: Short motivation letter (Up to 300 words). Name of two potential researchers willing to provide references.
Participants limit: 24 people
Costs covered by Geo-INQUIRE:
- Accommodation
- Breakfasts and dinners
- Lunches and coffee breaks
Travel costs will not be supported!
Venue: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Florence, via Giorgio La Pira, 4, 50121, Firenze, Italy
Closest airports:
- Firenze (FLR) - Firenze city center accessible with Tramvia (www.gestramvia.it) directly from terminal
- Pisa (PSA) 85 km - Firenze city center accessible with train (www.trenitalia.it) or shuttle (www.flibco.com)
- Bologna (BLQ) 110 km - Firenze city center accessible with bus + train or shuttle (www.appenninoshuttle.it)
Accommodation: Participants will be accommodated in single rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn hotel in Florence (check in Aug. 27 - check-out Aug. 30) with breakfast and dinner included. Lunch and coffee break will be organized at the Department of Earth Sciences.
The Hilton Garden Inn hotel (Via Sandro Pertini, 2/9, 50127 Firenze FI) can be reached with the direct T2 line from the airport (stop: San Donato - Università).
The Workshop can be reached directly from the hotel with the T2 line (stop: San Marco - Università).
Geo-INQUIRE promotes diversity and inclusion within the scope of the project.