This paper presents an experimentation, which has been conducted in the underwater archaeological site of Capo Colonna, aimed to verify the joined use of optical and acoustic techniques for the generation of multi-resolution textured 3D models of underwater sites, obtained by merging the results of surveys carried out with these two types of systems.

Submarine geotechnical exploration is a challenging task that is currently undergoing a paradigm change thanks to robotics and teleoperation. The MD500 Project is an underwater subsea geotechnical drilling and in situ testing device designed to sample and probe up to 150 m of soils of rock beneath the seabed in water depths of up to 500 m. The system has applications in several areas of marine activity, such as port infrastructure, nearshore and offshore renewable energy projects, oil & gas, submarine mining, etc. The machine consists of a group of devices operated remotely and that must synchronize with each other: drilling tower, stabilizing legs and three manipulators (two cartesian and one anthropomorphic). These manipulators can be operated manually or in a semi-automated (robot) mode. The automated routines aim to substitute the actions of the drilling crew when handling the tubes and rods in the harsh environment for which the machine is envisioned The paper presents an overview of the code and logic behind the tool manipulation and handling routines of the MD500, which are at the core of a “Virtual Drilling Crew” inbuilt in the machine design.

The development of dedicated software has opened a new frontier in Earth Sciences, leading to a more accurate spatial analysis of geological structures and to 3D geospatial models. We studied the offshore of the Salento Peninsula (Italy) that is part of the stable Apulian foreland of the Southern Apennines thrust belt. We interpreted a seismic grid, calibrated by borehole data, using seismic stratigraphy and structural geology approaches in a dedicated GIS environment. We built 2-D models of relevant geological surfaces and 3-D digital models of the subsurface showing NW-SE and NNW-SSE normal faults. Some of these structures are active faults displacing the seafloor and are associated with historical and recorded earthquakes. Hence, the identification of these active faults implies a potential seismogenetic source in the Salento Peninsula offshore that should be considered in the earthquake and tsunami hazard evaluation of the coasts of southern Italy, Albania and Greece.

Surface dam monitoring has been always based on traditional surveying techniques that are time consuming and characterized by some limitations in space coverage and frequency. More recently DInSAR (Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry) satellite-based technologies allow us to integrate and improve the monitoring capabilities provided by ground-based methods, thanks to their effectiveness to measure displacements on reflecting elements of the structure, acting as non-destructive control points. Therefore the availability of a large number of measurements points distributed along the whole structure and the capability of observing displacement rates of few millimeters per year furnish useful information for the calibration of numerical models simulating dam behavior under stress conditions, thus improving the maintainance of safety standards. The aim of this work is to show how DInSAR technique integrated with the traditional measurements was adopted to analyse the long-term displacements of an earth dam in Genzano di Lucania.

The Farneto del Principe dam in southern Italy is a critical infrastructure, equipped with a complete monitoring system. Over the years, the effectiveness of this system has been drastically reduced, mainly due to a consistent number of malfunctioned piezometers. A substantial geotechnical investigation campaign was performed in 2015, and new piezometers installed. They are beneficial for supplementing monitoring data and enhance the reliability of the old monitoring system. This paper describes the results from standard geotechnical laboratory and chemical-physical tests, as well as first measurements from the new piezometers. The first insights from these investigations are: (1) the hydraulic conductivity in the core did not increase over time, (2) the seepage flow discharge is relatively low, and (3) the water analyzed does not show critical chemical-physical changes. Combining this information, it is possible to anticipate that the first results of the 2015 campaign show a good static behavior of the dam and exclude possible water tightness problems.