Ricerc@Sapienza

Campi Flegrei (CF) is an active volcanic caldera located in southern Italy, west of Naples, that sourced three of the largest explosive eruptions in Europe, the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI, ~40 ka), the Masseria del Monte (~29 ka) and the Neapolitan Yellow Tuff (NYT, ~14.5 ka). In proximal settings, the emplacement of these three large caldera-forming eruptions almost completely obliterated the stratigraphic record of CF eruptions that occurred between 14.5-40 ka and before 40 ka, making the record of volcanism fragmentary and incomplete. Previous studies have tentatively extended the explosive history of CF by ascribing to this caldera some tephra layers, such as the C-22 (~93 ka), X-5 (~105 ka) and X-6 (~109 ka), widely dispersed in the central-eastern Mediterranean area and representing key makers for the marine and terrestrial Quaternary archives. However, hitherto, the attribution of these tephra to the CF activity was essentially based only on the geochemical affinity with Campanian volcanics, while a definitive volcanological documentation of such deposits in proximal setting is almost completely lacking.
The aim of the present research proposal is to give a fundamental contribute in order to fill this gap of knowledge by tracing the proximal equivalents of these tephra and by stratigraphically, geochemically and geochronologically characterising them. Preliminary glass-WDS analyses of some pre-CI units cropping out in Campania Plain revealed promising correlations with the C-22, X-5 and X-6 tephra. Nevertheless, further lithostratigraphic, geochemical (major and trace elements, isotope ratios) and geochronological (40Ar/39Ar dating) analyses are required in order to confidently identify the mid-proximal equivalents of the distal tephra. Furtherly, an attempt to estimate eruptive parameters - such as column height, total erupted mass and isopachs - will be performed through an appropriate bi- and/or three-dimensional ash-dispersal Eulerian model.