I progetti PRIN hanno rappresentato una delle principali fonti di finanziamento pubblico ed indipendente a sostegno della ricerca di base nell’università italiana. Nonostante il progressivo decurtamento dei fondi avvenuto negli ultimi anni, essi rappresentano ancora un prestigioso ed importante riconoscimento ai progetti di ricerca che risultano vincitori. Nell’ultima selezione ben due progetti PRIN risultati vincitori hanno visto coinvolte unità di ricerca del nostro dipartimento.
Giovedì 27 aprile, a partire dalle ore 14,30, in Aula C del Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, saranno illustrati questi progetti con due brevi seminari. Il programma è il seguente:

Prof. Luigi Folco
Titolo: “Cosmic dust: A cosmochemical view of the origin and evolution of the Solar System - A PRIN 2015 project”

Short abstract - This seminar is an introduction to a just-started Project of Relevant National Interest (PRIN) funded by the Italian Ministry of the Research and University (MIIUR) and entiltled Cosmic dust: A cosmochemical view of the origin and evolution of the Solar System. The project focuses on the cosmochemical study of two unique collections of cosmic dust already available in our laboratories: the Transantarctic Mountain collection and the DUSTER (Dust in the Upper Stratosphere Tracking Experiment and Retrieval) collection. The composition of the dust complex in the inner Solar System (seen from Earth as the zodiacal cloud) is the outstanding issue in astrophysics and planetary science that we would like to address. This will allow us to obtain further information on the nature of all the dust producing bodies including asteroids, comets, an.d perhaps planets and their satellites.

Prof. Chiara Montomoli

“The subducton and exhumation of the continental lithosphere: their effects on the structure and evolution of the orogens”

Short abstract - Active collisional orogens represent exceptional natural laboratories for testing theories and geodynamic models. Formed as a consequence of continental collision between India and Asia, which began at about 55 Ma, the Himalaya-Karakorum belt is the most prominent “large-hot” orogen on Earth; the intensity and the extent of the still active orogenetic processes are evident from the occurrence of the highest mountains on Earth, the high seismicity and the highest exhumation rates measured in collisional orogens so far (Zeitler et al. 1993). Different tectonic models have been formulated so far to explain the tectono-metamorphic evolution of the Himalayan orogen: most of them are based on the role of two E-W trending, N-dipping, first-order tectonic lineaments occurring all along the belt, i.e. the Main Central Thrust (MCT) and the South Tibetan Detachment System (STDS), bounding the Greater Himalayan Sequence (GHS), one of the major tectonic unit of the Himalaya representing the metamorphic core of the belt. However recent studies, allowed to recognise several ductile shear zones within the GHS. Preliminary data suggest that these discontinuities represent a first-order tectonic feature running for several hundred kilometres and dividing the GHS in two different portions (Montomoli et al., 2015). Aim of the project is to study the mechanism allowing the evolution of large hot orogens and to constraint the evolution of the continental lithosphere during its exhumation by a multitechnique approach.