Remote sensing of Italian volcanos

Abstract

Over the past few years, the authors of this paper, under the auspices of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), have carried out several airborne remote‐sensing missions over active and recently active volcanos in southern Italy. These activities were aimed at exploring the uses of new airborne remote‐sensing techniques to provide thermal, lithologic, structural, and geomorphic information in a synoptic format for use in geological mapping and volcanic process studies. In addition, because of the intimate mixture of urban centers and active volcanos in Italy, there was and is substantial interest in assessing the utility of remote‐sensing techniques for civil protection, hazard prediction, and damage reduction as related to volcanic activity.