The Sabatini Mountains and the Alban Hills, volcanic regions on the outskirts of Rome, have had a similar eruptive history so much that it is possible to consider them "sleeping twins". This is shown by the study published in the journal Scientific Reports by the group of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Ingv), coordinated by Fabrizio Marra, together with colleagues from the Sapienza University of Rome and the Geochronology Laboratory of the American University of Wisconsin.
The authors of the study reconstructed the eruptive activity of the regions of the Sabatini Mountains and the Alban Hills, which are home to lakes of volcanic origin, using different investigation techniques. In fact, they combined remote sensing techniques to reconstruct the deformations of the soil, with dating systems of lava rocks based on the radioactive decay of potassium and argon, and historical information on the seismicity of these regions.
In the map the volcanic regions of the Sabatini Mountains and the Alban Hills, at the gates of Rome, with a similar eruptive history (source: INGV)
Analyzes have shown that, although about 70,000 years have passed since the last eruption of the Sabatini Mountains, "both the Sabatini Mountains and the Alban Hills cannot be considered extinct volcanoes", clarified Marra. “Both are in fact in a state that we can call dormant. In a sleep that - the expert specifies - for the Sabatini Mountains it is deep and peaceful, and for the Alban Hills it is restless ”. The scholar concludes by stressing that both volcanic districts, if they were to awaken, "would in any case show broad precursor signals before their eventual resumption of eruptive activity".
