Hack the fractures on active volcanoes

Hack the fractures on active volcanoes

Category: Unsupervised and self-supervised learning, visual and geometric analytics, clustering

Your challenge is to automatically recognize all fractures affecting a volcanic terrain (Mt Etna and Northern Iceland), through the analysis of high-resolution images and digital surface models derived by drone surveys and photogrammetry processing.

Drone-captured image showing dip–slip faults and extension fractures affecting volcanic terrains in Northern Iceland.

Each team shall consist of 3 participants. It is strongly recommended every team to have at least a student/expert in Earth or Geological Sciences and a student/expert in Mathematics/Computer Programming. You can register your team, but also self-registrations (individual participants) are equally welcome. In the latter, the staff committee will assign the single-registered participants into teams after their registration.

It is mandatory to implement your own code/method ad to use the ATMO-Stress tool to interpolate and visualize the final results.


Recommended tool:


Open access resources – recommended reading list:

  1. Photogrammetry processing, digital surface models and orthomosaic building: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/19/6759/htm

  2. Fracture types and the opening vector: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/11/2/101/htm

  3. Photogrammetry processing, data analysis and Atmo-Stress application: https://se.copernicus.org/articles/12/801/2021/

  4. Fractures in volcanic terrain (northern Iceland): https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/9/2/14/htm

Suggested 3D Virtual Outcrops for geological interpretations:

  1. Extension fractures, Theystareykir Fissure Swarm, Northern Iceland

  2. Extension fracture field, Krafla Fissure Swarm, Northern Iceland

  3. Graben structure, Theystareykir fissure swarm, Northern Iceland

  4. Lava flow cascading into an extension fracture, Northern Volcanic Zone of Iceland

  5. Faulted scoria cone, Mt. Etna (Italy)

  6. Sinkholes, Northern Volcanic Zone of Iceland

Staff contact list:

Evaluation committee members:

  1. Alessandro Tibaldi, expert in fractures analysis in volcanic terrain, Leader of the ILP Task Force II, full professor at Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 1-4, 20126 Milan, Italy.

  2. Emanuela De Beni, expert in fractures analysis in volcanic terrain, researcher at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia - Osservatorio Etneo, Piazza Roma 2, 95125 Catania – Italy.

  3. Fabio Vitello, expert in image analysis, HPC System and software development. Research Technologist at INAF - Istituto di Radioastronomia, Via P. Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy


Partners for this event:

  • Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy;

  • Italian Geological Society;

  • CRUST - Interuniversity Center for 3D Seismotectonics with territorial applications;

  • ILP TASK FORCE II - DEFORMATION AND MAGMATIC PROCESSES FROM THE LITHOSPHERE TO THE SURFACE: INTEGRATED MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES.