The contribution of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) to “Adria LithosPHere investigAtion (ALPHA)” active seismic experiment

During the winter 2012, from 20 January to 4 February, the German oceanographic FS METEOR cruise (M86/3) took place in the central-southern Adriatic Sea in the frame of “Adria LithosPHere InvestigAtion” (ALPHA [Kopp et al., 2013]). The primary goal of the project was high-resolution tomographic imaging of the crust and lithospheric mantle underneath the southern Adriatic Sea, the Apulia eastern margin and the external zone of the Dinaric thrust-belt by collecting offshore-onshore seismic data along three multi-fold wide-aperture profiles. The definition of reliable velocity models of the Adriatic lithosphere was considered crucial for a better understanding of the structure, fragmentation, geodynamic evolution, and seismotectonics of the Adria-Apulia microplates.  The ALPHA Project was coordinated by Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany (GEOMAR), former Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (German: Leibniz-Institut fur Meereswissenschaften, IFM-GEOMAR) and conducted in close cooperation with different European institutions of Germany, Albania, Croatia, Italy and Montenegro. The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica Vulcanologia (INGV) participated by deploying land stations along two transects in the Apulia and Gargano Promontory to extend westwards the seismic profiles. The primary goal was to record shallow-to-deep seismic phases travelling along the transition between the Adriatic basin and the Apulia foreland.  In this paper we present the field work related to the two Italian onshore transects, the recorded data, and the processing flow developed to highlight crustal and mantle refractions and wide-angle reflections.