Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra

 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Marta DELLA SETA
TITLE: Hands-On Earth Science Activities sui rischi geologici: allestimento di spazi espositivi interattivi nel Comune di Roma
FUNDING AGENCY: Sapienza Università di Roma, Bando Terza Missione 2019 
P.I.: Marta Della Seta

START DATE: maggio 2020
END DATE: dicembre 2021
ABSTRACT: 
Italy is a country with a high geological risk and not only for the danger of the natural phenomena that characterize the territory. Often, in fact, the high vulnerability of human settlements and their considerable value, in terms of human lives and artistic-cultural heritage, have a significant influence on the extent of the damage suffered by the population in the occurrence of phenomena such as, for example, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, floods.
This fact outlines that Italy, despite being a country at the forefront of scientific research on geological risks, still has to invest heavily in good risk management and mitigation practices. The latter cannot ignore the dissemination of scientific culture in society, the main purpose of which must be to encourage greater awareness of risk factors and effective strategies for its mitigation.
The Department of Earth Sciences of Sapienza (DST) is increasingly involved in training, orientation and dissemination activities of Geosciences in the territory of Rome and Lazio, within the PLS, and ASL/PCTO projects, but also thanks to the exceptional museum hosted in its buildings (MUST, University Museum of Earth Sciences).
This project here presented intends to make use of an Interdisciplinary Laboratory of the Faculty of SMFN (LIFS) being set up within the DST, which, with this project, would find in the Third Mission activities an enhancement of its teaching function.
The proposal provides for the use of LIFS for the creation of laboratory kits for hands-on activities aimed at the reproduction of natural phenomena linked to geological risks, their use for refresher courses for secondary school teachers and their location, at the end of the project, at the MUST and Technotown exhibition (hub of creative science of Villa Torlonia in Rome) to ensure the maximum fruition by the population. The project envisages the involvement, as social actors, of some secondary schools and of the company Zètema, which manages Technotown, as creators, and the citizens (mainly of the Municipality of Rome) as the final user. Zètema's many years of experience in the field of scientific dissemination and its mission on the territory of the Municipality of Rome, combined with the skills and cutting-edge infrastructures of the DST, will guarantee the achievement of high standards of scientific and communication quality, with the possibility, for Sapienza, to take advantage of an important showcase, also for incoming orientation.

 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Marta DELLA SETA
TITLE: The Archaeological Mission in the Sahara. Environment and societies in prehistoric Tunisia
FUNDING AGENCY: Sapienza Università di Roma, Bando Grandi Scavi 2020
P.I.: Savino Di Lernia (Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità)

START DATE: giugno 2020
END DATE: giugno 2021
ABSTRACT:
The Archaeological Mission in the Sahara will carry out field activities in Tunisia in the Chott el Jerid, the Grand Erg Oriental, the Dahar (governorates of Kebili and Tataouine) and in the Wadi Serrat (el Kef). Laboratory activities, dissemination and publications are integral part of the research. The project continues the study on past environmental and cultural trajectories at late Quaternary contexts in the Northern Sahara and the pre-desert to understand key evolutive and population dynamics: the appearance of the earliest H. sapiens and their material correlates (c. 300 ka); the introduction of food production economies and the interactions with the last hunter-gatherers in the early Holocene (c. 11,000 calBP); the network of contacts revealed by late prehistoric funerary traditions; the genetic composition and ethno-history of sedentary and mobile communities. To achieve the objectives of the project, we shall excavate: i) the middle/late Pleistocene sequence of Wadi Lazalim; ii) the early Holocene contexts of Tembaine and Wadi Serrat; iii) the Neolithic funerary monuments in the Chott and the Erg. Field activities are carefully scheduled in the framework of an organically conceived territorial project, but could shift from area to area after the security advice of the Italian Embassy in Tunis. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, the fieldwork is flexibly scheduled in a long mission in autumn 2020 (October-November) or early 2021. Around 30 Tunisian and Italian scientists and students will compose the team: archaeologists, geologists, botanists and biologists. The fieldwork will also focus on the training of Tunisian and Italian students. We shall also continue the analyses on archaeological materials from the missions 2015-2019, plus the 2020 campaign. Other laboratory analyses will be conducted on biological and skeletal material from SW Libya currently curated at the Museum of Anthropology of Sapienza University of Rome (DNA, stable isotopes, C14).

 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:  Francesco TROIANI
TITLE: Geomorphic response of fluvial systems to climate change during the last glacial-interglacial cycle in the northern Apennines of Italy
FUNDING AGENCY: Sapienza Università di Roma – Progetti d’Ateneo categoria Medi

START DATE: gennaio 2021
END DATE: dicembre 2022
ABSTRACT:
This project deals with the exploration of the geomorphic response of the fluvial systems to the short-term climate variability, combining both process-based and historical geomorphological approaches. Only few studies focused so far on quantifying the response of fluvial processes to low magnitude, short-term climate variability, especially the ones characterizing the last glacial- interglacial cycle. The northern Apennines offer a unique opportunity for answering different scientific open questions because preserves well-developed fluvial terraces, from late Pleistocene up to Holocene in age, due to repeated cut and fill episodes that interchanged during the last 75 ka. Traditional field survey, remote sensing, quantitative land surface analysis and landscape evolution modelling are planned along some key river valleys draining the northern Apennines (43°- 44° N). Specific research goals are: 1) description of the main terrace depositional phases, absolute geochronological collocation and along-valley morpho-stratigraphic correlations; 2) description of types and rates of the post-glacial valley entrenchment; 3) discrimination of the components due to climate, active tectonics and landslide erosion in the terrace generation; 4) identification of the regional-to-global correspondence of the recognized morpho-evolutionary steps with the acknowledged climate events within the Mediterranean area. Results are expected to contribute to the knowledge on the geomorphic response to climate change, enhancing the understanding about the role of global warming on the future waterscape transformations at the mid latitude.