A clear “ring fault” is noticeable from the earthquakes occurring near Campi Flegrei, located to the west of Naples, between 2022 and 2025. (Image credit: Xing Tan)
A form of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought to light previously unseen geological formations at Italy’s Campi Flegrei volcano, which include a distinct “ring fault” that has the potential to trigger earthquakes of magnitude 5.
Up to this point in 2025, Campi Flegrei has experienced five earthquakes exceeding magnitude 4, and the volcano has displayed indications of upheaval since 2005. However, many of the earthquakes taking place in the area remain undetected, as shown by a recent study that used AI to identify tens of thousands of seismic occurrences that have gone unnoticed over the last several years.
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Throughout the last 40,000 years, Campi Flegrei has been responsible for two of Europe’s largest eruptions, and available data implies that the volcano’s past exhibited equal levels of explosiveness. Scientists have been documenting unrest at Campi Flegrei from the 1950s onward, but surveillance efforts were amplified in the 1980s following a cluster of 16,000 earthquakes, leading to the removal of 40,000 inhabitants.
To probe into current dangers from Campi Flegrei, Ellsworth and his fellow researchers formulated an AI tool capable of spotting earthquakes that earlier methods were unable to detect.
Seismologists have traditionally identified earthquakes by scrutinizing seismograms, which are visual representations depicting ground vibrations over a period. Researchers search for an abrupt rise in the dimensions of the vibrations, and this procedure is referred to as “phase picking,” explained Greg Beroza, a geophysics professor at Stanford University who also co-authored the study.
“That constitutes a straightforward and typically effective way of identifying a phase, but it lacks the capacity to ‘learn’ for enhanced future performance,” Beroza conveyed to Live Science via email. “Conversely, our methodology involves instructing a machine learning model in phase identification, grounded in a compilation of millions of instances where specialists have previously carried out this task. Our strategy aims to acquire more effective means of phase identification.”
The team chose to utilize their tool to analyze Campi Flegrei before examining other volcanoes due to numerous reasons, which include a crucial necessity to enhance awareness regarding the volcano’s behavior, as Beroza noted. Campi Flegrei’s caldera, measuring 7 miles in length (11 kilometers), encompasses more than 360,000 residents, while the broader encompassing area holds approximately 1.5 million inhabitants. Unrest heightened in 2018 following the preceding 20 years — and although no imminent indications suggest an upcoming eruption, a particularly forceful or superficial earthquake could pose substantial risks to communities, along with potentially inflicting harm to infrastructure, as indicated by the statement.
The AI tool’s findings, documented on Sept. 4 in the journal Science, reveal that roughly three-quarters of the earthquakes at Campi Flegrei between 2022 and mid-2025 were undetected. In contrast to traditional methods which documented 12,000 earthquakes throughout the specified period, the AI analysis suggests a value closer to 54,000.
By charting the earthquake positions, the researchers pinpointed faults — fissures within Earth’s crust susceptible to creating earthquakes via grinding movements against each other — that earlier approaches had not emphasized. Notably, the team uncovered two faults converging underneath Pozzuoli, a town situated west of Naples wherein evacuations took place in the 1980s. The positioning of these faults implies “an earthquake in the magnitude 5 area isn’t beyond consideration,” Ellsworth stated.
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By tracing recent seismic activity in the Campi Flegrei area, researchers detected multiple previously uncharted faults. Displayed is a map that illustrates two faults which virtually run parallel under the town of Pozzuoli, potentially signaling forthcoming disturbances.
That wasn’t the single significant observation. Pozzuoli underwent land elevation during the 1980s, an event that is presently repeating itself, with the terrain beneath the town incrementally elevating at a pace of approximately 4 inches (10 centimeters) annually. As it happens, a collection of faults encompass the uplifted area, thus fashioning an attenuated, distinctly demarcated “ring fault” that expands offshore, as per the statement.
“Our Italian colleagues were astounded to observe the ring’s clarity,” commented Xing Tan, the study’s primary author and a doctoral student in Beroza’s laboratory, within the statement. “They anticipated detecting activity towards the south, where past information suggested dispersed seismicity. Nonetheless, they had never witnessed such clarity towards the north.”
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Seismic occurrences occurring in conjunction with the ring fault could enable anticipating transformations transpiring within the mechanism. Moreover, these could possibly indicate the magnitudes of forthcoming earthquakes, according to Beroza. However, these do not deliver new understanding regarding the likelihood or timing affiliated with Campi Flegrei’s subsequent eruption.
“The total amount of analyzed seismic events from 2022 to mid-2025 exists on a superficial level, lying at depths surpassing 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). Furthermore, they do not intimate any magma migration directing towards the surface,” Beroza clarified.
The outcomes secured by the team in relation to Campi Flegrei imply the likelihood of extending the AI instrument to other volcanoes as well. Geographic locations that have, in recent times, witnessed heightened seismic activity, for instance, Santorini in Greece, would potentially realize advantages from a heightened comprehension concerning the underlying geology, as stipulated by the researchers in the statement.
Sascha PareSocial Links NavigationStaff writer
Sascha functions as a staff writer at Live Science, situated in the U.K. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Southampton, located in England, in conjunction with a master’s degree in science communication secured from Imperial College London. Her contributions have been featured in The Guardian and the health website Zoe. Outside of her writing endeavors, she partakes in activities such as tennis, bread-making, in addition to searching thrift stores for undiscovered treasures.
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