PhD Project

Vulcano Island is part of the Aeolian Archipelago, which is located north of Sicily. The crater "La Fossa" had its last eruption in 1890. Since then, only fumarolic activities have been observed.

In my PhD project I will develop a groundwater model for the shallow aquifer in the harbour region. This aquifer has three main inputs: rain water, condensed steam from the crater and the surrounding sea water. In a first step, these water fluxes have to be quantified using chemical analysis. With known mixing ratios at different wells, the origin of the water can be determined.

In a second step, the groundwater model will be setup. The modeling software used in this project is SPRING. There are two parameters influencing the water density: the salt concentration and the temperature. The groundwater model will take into acount both. The structure of the island is highly heterogeneous because of the volcanic history. Structural data will be obtained from geophysical data analysis such as geoelectric measurements, geomagnetic measurements or surface temperature data.