Research projects
Researchers in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences are engaged in numerous research projects on international, national, and regional competitive calls, with basic, applied or educational research character.
Below is a selection of projects in which our Department plays the lead role. All active research projects are available on the 'Research Lines and Groups' page.
Andromeda (Cariplo Project)
Landslide and subsidence hazard, risk and resilience assessment in coastal areas.
Referent: Prof. Claudia Meisina
CE4WE – Circular Economy for Water and Energy
An integrated research, development, and innovation hub in the circular economy for energy supply and water resource management.
Referent: Prof. Andrea Di Giulio
CLAW (LIFE project)
Preserving and improving the stock of the autochthonous freshwater crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes, in the north-western Apennine area of the Emilia Romagna and Liguria regions, through a long-term conservation programme.
Referent: Prof. Roberto Sacchi
Commander (PNRA-MIUR)
COMMANDER aims at studying for the first time the carbon phases (diamond, graphite, lonsdaleite, etc.) of Antarctic ureilites from Frontier Mountain (Antarctica), preserved at the National Museum of Antarctica in Siena, with the aim of elucidating the origin, formation, and relationships among the different carbon phases in these meteorites.
Referent: Prof. Chiara M Domeneghetti
www.mineralogylab.com/projects/
CORE-SAVE project
Setting up a regional network to safeguard traditional plant germplasm in Lombardy.
Referent: Prof. Graziano Rossi
Cover Crops in Field Margins to Increase Biodiversity
Seeding of paddy field embankments with indigenous wild plant species in order to reduce the use of herbicides, increase the biodiversity of the paddy field ecosystem, and promote the pollination ecosystem service.
Referent: Prof. Maura Brusoni
CULTIVAR project
Identification, cataloguing and increase of collections of genetic resources of plants of agricultural interest at risk of extinction or genetic erosion in Lombardy (Law 194/2015).
Referent: Prof. Graziano Rossi
DRYLANDS (LIFE project)
Restoration of continental acidophilous arid habitats (2330, 4030, 6210/6210*) found within eight Natura 2000 sites in the western Po Valley.
Referent: Silvia Assini
Dynastars – The Dynamic Mass Transfer from Slabs to Arcs (PRIN-MIUR project)
“The Dynamic Mass Transfer from Slabs to Arcs” constraints the evolution of fluid-melt/rock interaction through temperature, space and time adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates microstructural, petrologic and geochemical studies of natural rocks (from slab, to cold and hot mantle wedge, ultimately to arc crust) serving as strong basis for comparison with laboratory experiments defining the physical and chemical properties of minerals, melts and fluids at high pressure-temperature conditions.
Coordinator: Marco Scambelluri (U Genova)
Fundings: Ministero Italiano Università e Ricerca (MUR), € 384,084
Referent: Prof. Matteo Alvaro
www.mineralogylab.com/projects/
EPIRESISTENZE
Tackling the issue of herbicide resistance with an innovative approach, with a view to precision agriculture, biodiversity conservation and reducing the environmental impact of agro-ecosystems.
Referent: Prof. Maura Brusoni
IMPACt (FARE-MIUR project)
“StackIng disorder in diaMonds as a marker for the history of Pre-solAr Carbon” addresses questions related to the investigation of deformation in diamond and their use as a marker for the history of their formation and relationship with impact cratering processes.
The IMPACt project will address these questions using an approach that combines X-ray diffraction, μ-Raman spectroscopy, and ab-initio methods to investigate the preserved traces of stacking disorder in laboratory-shocked diamonds to provide a shock vs. stacking disorder scale that will be used for a systematic investigation of diamonds retrieved from different impact craters, comet fragments and meteorites and thereby determine how the diamonds formed.
Principal Investigator: Matteo Alvaro (U Pavia)
Fundings: Ministero Italiano Università e Ricerca (MUR), € 234,255
Referent: Prof. Matteo Alvaro
www.mineralogylab.com/projects/
OL-Bodies – OLivine-Bearing UngrOupeD achondrIEtS and their parental bodies (INAF-ASI project)
Referent: Prof. Matteo Alvaro
RESERVOIR
Sustainable groundwater management using earth observation technologies.
Referent: Prof. Claudia Meisina
QUIZ - Quartz-in-Zircon (NSF project)
Jack Hills zircon are the oldest known minerals from the Hadean Eon and have been frequently utilized to study tectonics processes and thermal conditions of early Earth. Despite extensive use of zircon for geochronologic and thermochronologic studies, there are currently no methods for determining the depth of zircon crystallization. QUIZ project will, for the first time, determine the elastic interactions between an elastically anisotropic host and inclusion system, which can be used to determine the pressure of inclusion entrapment in the host zircon. With the calibrated quartz-in-zircon elastic model, I will apply the method to Hadean Jack Hills zircons to determine their depth of crystallization and give further insight into the temporal scales of plate tectonics.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Joseph P Gonzalez (mentor Prof. Matteo Alvaro)
Referent: Prof. Matteo Alvaro
www.mineralogylab.com/projects/
RELIEVE
Good practices for the recovery, cultivation and valorisation of traditional local cultivars in Lombardy.
Referent: Prof. Graziano Rossi
TRUE DEPTHS (ERC project)
“deTeRmine the trUe dEpth of DeEp subduction from PiezobaromeTry on Host –inclusions System” tackled one of the fundamental question for the quantitative understanding of the rates and true depths of subduction.
The TRUE DEPTHS project developed X-ray diffraction and micro-Raman methods together with the theoretical background for the analysis of the anisotropic elastic interactions of inclusion minerals trapped inside host minerals to determine whether significant deviatoric stresses are recorded by Ultra High Pressure Metamorphic (UHPM) rocks.
Principal Investigator: Matteo Alvaro (U Pavia)
Fundings: European Research Council (ERC), Starting Grant, € 1.697,500
Referent: Prof. Matteo Alvaro
www.mineralogylab.com/projects/
MILE DEEp
“Mineral IncLusion Elasticity for a new deep subDuction gEobaromEter” addresses the need for a method of P and T determination that does not rely on the detailed chemistry of the rock, nor on whether chemical equilibrium has been obtained.
The MILE DEEp project will addressed these needs with the development of the basic theoretical principles for a geothermobarometric method that exploits the elastic behavior of mineral inclusions trapped in host minerals phase contained in Ultra High Pressure Metamorphic rocks.
Fundings: Ministero Italiano Università e Ricerca (MUR), € 449,900
Referent: Prof. Matteo Alvaro
www.mineralogylab.com/projects/
THALES
“High-stress earTHquakes by fAuLting in dEep dry rockS” with a multidisciplinary cutting-edge scientific approach which will involve researchers with different background (structural geology, mineralogy, rock mechanics, petrology and seismology), exploits two of the best examples worldwide of exposed sources of IDEs (Musgrave Ranges, Central Australia, for the lower continental crust; Lanzo Massif, W-Alps, for oceanic subduction) to unravel the mechanics of these earthquakes.
Coordinator: Giorgio Pennacchioni (U Padova)
Fundings: Ministero Italiano Università e Ricerca (MUR), € 398,514
Referent: Prof. Matteo Alvaro
www.mineralogylab.com/projects/
VIRECLI (PSR project)
Gestione sostenibile di vigneti in pendenza per la prevenzione del dissesto idrogeologico e l’aumento della sostanza organica.
Referent: Prof. Claudia Meisina
Oltrenatura (Cariplo project)
Protection of natural and social capital through the valorisation of ecosystem services and networking in Oltrepò Pavese.
Referents: proff. Roberto Sacchi, Silvia Assini
POFEAM (Liguria regional project)
Improving and increasing the genetic knowledge of trout (genus Salmo) for environmental sustainability in the inland area of the Antola and Tigullio valleys.
Referent: Prof. Roberto Sacch