ERC:Giacomo Pozzi

Giacomo Pozzi was born in Feltre, in the province of Belluno. He studied geology at the department of Earth Sciences in Padua, graduating with top marks. For his thesis, he studied the pegmatites of the Central Alps, acidic dikes capable of preserving a record of the deformative history of the orogen. With a change in research theme, Giacomo Pozzi began my PhD in Earth Sciences at Durham, UK, funded by the Innovative Training Network CREEP (642029). During these three years, he conducted more than 300 experiments, deforming various types of fault rock at speeds and pressures typical of the earthquake propagation phase. During this phase, the rocks heat up to the point of drastically weakening, transferring energy to the rupture front and facilitating the propagation of the earthquake. His research has shown that this weakening occurs in certain rocks without melting, but through viscous deformation mechanisms that preserve the crystallinity of the material. After his experience in the UK, he moved to Rome as a research fellow and contract researcher at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. Here, his research shifted to the nucleation phase of earthquakes, a still poorly understood phase characterized by slow and difficult-to-document processes. Collaborating with La Sapienza, Rome, he demonstrated the importance of fault microstructures in the nucleation potential of an earthquake. These results inspired OMEN, a project aimed at real-time observation of these hidden mechanisms using a new experimental methodology. The department of Earth Sciences in Padua will once again be the place where Giacomo Pozzi will conduct his research.