The Department of Earth Sciences (DST), in accordance with the resolution of the academic bodies of May 29, 2020, bases its action for the academic year 2020-2021 on the precautionary and non-discriminatory principle and acts as follows:

- For the first semester 2020-21, all the teachings of the Master of Sciences in Exploration and Applied Geophysics (MSc) must be delivered remotely in telematic mode (Microsoft Teams platform): this is currently the most reasonable, viable and effective option, and it will allow to keep an academic calendar unchanged from the usual one.

- The DST and the MSc have developed a distance teaching plan for the first semester which will maintain all the basic training criteria, but will also be enriched with supplementary and complementary contents and experiences.

- A reception and tutoring project for support of freshmen has been prepared.

- Part of the practical activities and laboratories will be recovered in the presence between January and February, if necessary and health conditions allow. Lessons in the field will be held in the second semester, and participation will also be offered to students who were unable to participate in the 2019-2020 academic year.

- This plan will allow students to take the exams according to the usual academic calendar.

The DST and the MSc, as soon as the health condition allows, are able to immediately switch to the face-to-face teaching, while guaranteeing the telematic method as a necessary option for students who are unable to participate in face-to-face lessons.

The choice of the DST and the MSc is reasonable and clear and does not leave any ambiguity or margins of discretion, guaranteeing the choices of the students and their families and allowing a peaceful planning of the economic choices related to university attendance.

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The course of Radar Geomorphology organizes a seminar delivered by Prof. Emanuele Forte (University of Trieste): "GPR in Glaciology: potential and challenge"

The seminar is planned for January 27th and will insight the possibility of GPR to image the interior of glaciers, to infer ice density distribution, locate brines and determine warm and cold domains. All are invited.

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Roberto Orosei will deliver a seminar inside the course of Radar Geomorphology: "Radar detection of subglacial water under the South polar cap of Mars"

The seminar is scheduled for January 27th (Room C, 14 PM, Earth Sciences Department) and will illustrate the capability of GPRs mounted aboard ESA Mars Express and NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to explore the subsurface of Mars. All are invited, see you there.

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The web portal for non-EU and EU-students application to the next Academic Year (2020-21) is operative. Please visit the site:

https://applymscenglish.unipi.it/valtitnew/web/app.php/en/studenti

and follow carefully the instructions required for registration and documents uploading. After a positive evaluation, applicants will be informed about enrolment procedure at the University of Pisa.

Applications will be evaluated in three rounds; students positively evaluated in the first round will be considered for a scholarship granted by the University of Pisa.

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Dr. Gianluca Catanzariti (3D GEOIMAGING) will deliver a seminar inside the course of Radar Geomorphology

"Non-conventional use of Ground Penetrating Radar: the example of the Italian research at Tutankhamon's tomb (KV62)"

The seminar's abstract cna be find here.

Students and researchers are invited on Thursday, the 12nd of December (09:15 am), Room E of the Department of Earth Sciences

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 Please find the official document at this link. Here below the principal information.

Who can apply? - Students who have the following requisites can be selected:

- To be regularly enrolled at the second year of the MSc in Exploration and Applied Geophysics (University of Pisa)

- Not to be over 26 years old on the date of December 31, 2019

- To have a weighted average of marks equal or higher than 27/30

- To be good at written and oral English

- To have passed at least three of the following exams: Applied Geophysics; Exploration Seismology and geophysical well-logs; Laboratory of digital data processing; Laboratory of seismic data processing and field campaign; Signal processing for Physics

The application must include:

- Curriculum vitae;

- Certificate of exams (with marks and University credits) provided by the University

Deadline for application - This documentation must be sent strictly within December 04, 2019 to the following email account:

application@enicorporateuniversity.eni.it

In the email reference (oggetto) must be reported the wording “Candidatura stage – Progetto Geologia 2020”.

After a positive evaluation of requisites, candidates will be examined via oral and practical tests at the headquarter of San Donato Milanese within the first half of December 2019.

The selected candidates will be supported by a grant of 800euro/month covering the entire stage duration.

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The 2019 SEG Distinguished Lecturer John T. Etgen (British Petroleum) from Houston,will come to Pisa to deliver the lecture

"Practical insights and techniques in seismic velocity estimation".

Students and researchers are invited on Friday, the 11th of October, hrs. 14:00 pm, Room C of the DST.

The event is organized by the Student Chapter of the University of Pisa and is supported by the Master of Science in Exploration and Applied Geophysics.

Participating to the event will contribute to obtain ECTS for the "Other Activities".

Summary

The estimation of seismic wave speeds plays one of the most important and critical roles in seismic data processing. As we explore more complex and previously unexplorable provinces, as well as demanding ever-higher quality images from seismic reflection data everywhere, accurate velocity models are of paramount importance. I feel this topic is so important that everyone involved in creating images from seismic reflection data should understand the fundamentals of seismic velocity estimation and be able to recognize limitations and pitfalls in practical applications. This lecture is designed to provide insights into how seismic velocity estimation really works, what you can resolve, and what you will have difficulty resolving. I will present experiments that demonstrate the power and limitations of tomographic approaches that rely on iterative prestack migration. During this discussion you will learn concepts that might at first seem counter-intuitive; for example, lateral resolution of velocity anomalies can often be higher than vertical resolution. I will demonstrate simple and effective ways of performing analysis and quality control during velocity model construction. Finally, we will discuss emerging and advanced methods for building velocity models in the most complex settings that are currently of industrial interest.

Biography

John T. Etgen received a bachelor of science degree in geophysical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 1985 and a Ph.D.

in geophysics from Stanford University in 1990. During his studies, he had the good fortune to work on a wide variety of topics in seismic imaging and data processing while learning from his mentors, Jon Claerbout and Norm Bleistein, along with many talented colleagues and fellow students. His thesis studied new-at-the-time prestack migration-driven tomographic techniques for velocity estimation. That experience taught him the true difficulties of inverse problems. Leaving Stanford behind, he began his industrial career in late 1990 at the Amoco Production Research Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Unlike many new Ph.D. graduates, he did not want to continue to work on his thesis topic! Fortunately, once again he had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of topics and learn from leading researchers, such as Dan Whitmore, Rusty Alford, Kurt Marfurt, Ken Kelley, Sam Gray, and many others. In 1999, Amoco merged with British Petroleum (BP) and John moved to Houston, Texas. His role was senior scientist and then senior scientific advisor for seismic imaging at BP. In 2008, he and Carl Regone were awarded the Virgil Kauffman medal for their work in wide-azimuth marine seismic. In late 2011, John was appointed distinguished advisor for seismic imaging at BP. John currently serves as assistant editor for the scientific journal Geophysics and continues to work in the upstream technology organization at BP.