Supervolcano Discovery Unites Italian Alps Cultures

Nearly two decades of geological research by an SMU earth sciences professor is unifying villages in Italy’s northern Alps.
“Excluding natural disasters, it is an unusual event when geology brings together people in a spirit of cooperation,” says SMU geologist and volcanologist James Quick.

But discovery of a 282 million-year-old fossil supervolcano in northwest Italy did just that. The supervolcano is a central geological feature within the new Sesia-Val Grande Geopark, a recent UNESCO designation.
>Quick talks about his supervolcano research.
Quick, a professor in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences in Dedman College and associate vice president for research and dean of graduate studies, led the scientific team that discovered the rare supervolcano. The discovery in Italy’s Sesia Valley attracted attention worldwide for its unprecedented view of the volcano’s internal plumbing to a depth of 15.5 miles.
Normally hidden from examination, plumbing is a volcano’s internal geological structure through which lava migrates from the earth’s mantle, up through the crust, to ultimately explode. Plumbing remains a substantial mystery, as volcanologists continue scientific exploration into how lava forms and moves through the earth.
One of only 100 geoparks in the world, Sesia-Val Grande Geopark spans tens of thousands of acres and more than 80 Alpine communities with diverse histories and cultures that have endured for centuries. When residents of Sesia Valley realized their supervolcano’s unique scientific qualities, they joined forces to attain and maintain coveted geopark status.
Supervolcano Dormant
Eruption of supervolcanoes is one of the most potentially violent events in the world, spewing hundreds of cubic miles of hot lava and ash and causing catastrophic changes in global climate. Sesia Valley’s supervolcano last erupted 282 million years ago, when it unleashed more than 186 cubic miles of molten particles, ash and gas.
When the discovery by Quick and scientists from the University of Trieste made headlines worldwide in 2009, Sesia Valley residents were alarmed.
“They held a big town meeting in one of the communities, Borgosesia, and hundreds of people came from all over the valley,” Quick says. “People were extremely worried the volcano would erupt again.” The scientists reassured residents they had nothing to fear. A fossil, the supervolcano no longer poses a danger.
Now its protruding rocks are a popular destination for scientists, college students, villagers, tourists and school groups. Proud residents enthusiastically brand many of the valley’s events and activities with their supervolcano identity. Even acclaimed Italian winemaker Cantalupo in 2013 honored the unique volcanic origins of its Sesia Valley grapes by labeling its Christmas wine with a painting of the exploding supervolcano.
Volcanic Rock Puzzle
The rock strata of the supervolcano extend for nearly 31 miles through Sesia Valley, sitting sideways like a tipped-over layer cake. In some places, rocks protrude haphazardly from the sides of mountains; in other places they sit under dense forest, roads, bustling villages, crop and livestock farms, outdoor sports locales and tourist destinations.
Scientists have known for more than a century about volcanic rocks in Sesia Valley. Quick first arrived there in 1989, seeking insight into the processes in the deep crust that influence eruptions. What he found kept him returning every summer for 16 years, including as head of the Volcano Hazards Program for the U.S. Geological Survey. His quest made him the first to tramp every mile of the steep mountainsides, sometimes with colleagues, often alone, to identify and map the valley’s rocks.
An unexpected breakthrough occurred in summer 2005. Walking the Sesia River, Quick stumbled upon a chaotic assemblage of giant rocks in the riverbed. He recognized them as fractured relics of the gigantic rim of a fossil supervolcano, quarried into huge chunks by a volcanic explosion.
In 2009, Quick and his team announced their discovery in the scientific journal Geology. They estimated that the mouth of the volcano would have been at least eight miles in diameter, although its true size will never be known because much of it is covered by younger sedimentary deposits.
Ancient Boundary
The Sesia Valley supervolcano was located inland on the supercontinent of Pangea. When Pangea began to break up more than 200 million years ago, the supervolcano was stranded on the coast of what we know as Africa. About 20 million years ago, another tectonic shift drove Africa and southern Europe back together, brutally heaving their coastal edges upward and resulting in a massive uplift – today’s Alps. The Sesia Valley supervolcano was tilted sideways, shoving it upward and exposing its plumbing.
Today the supervolcano is a mecca for geologists not only for its plumbing, but as one of the best examples of the earth’s mantle exposed at the surface.
Calling it the “Rosetta Stone” of supervolcanoes, Quick says ultimately the supervolcano could solve the mystery, “How does magma build up and explode?”
Scientific Merit
In 2010 the Italian Geological Society awarded Quick the Capellini Medal, presented to foreign geoscientists for a significant contribution to Italian geology. In 2013 he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Along with his Italian colleague, Silvano Sinigoi, Quick also was awarded honorary citizenship of Borgosesia, the highest award given to civilians by the largest city in the Sesia Valley.
– Margaret Allen