The crust and upper mantle make up the lithosphere, the upper solid-Earth layer which affects most the societal living environment. Knowledge of the structure of the lithosphere and of its evolution at different length and time scales are fundamental in the development of natural energy solutions and in the mitigation of geohazards such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Advanced geophysical and computational skills are necessary for this purpose. In this theme of the Doctorate, advanced techniques are taught in the following fields: seismology, space geodesy, satellite altimetry, space borne gravity, magnetics, .. The computational techniques rely on both inverse and forward schemes also using high performance computing nowadays essential for the analysis and interpretation of massive observations and big data.

The integration among the different fields allow a better understanding on how the Earth interior deforms and on how faults and volcanic complexes behave within a time span of interest to the society, leading therefore to a more realistic assessment of the related hazard. Specifically the effects on ground shaking of the propagation in the shallow geological layers, as well as the interaction of the building structure with the soil is of major importance for determining the impact of an earthquake.

Integrated geophysical methods (mainly seismic and electromagnetic) for subsurface imaging and characterization at crustal and near-surface scale are further topics of advanced training and research to improve understanding of seismogenic structure and ground shaking effects.

In particular the following topics are covered:

• Earthquake cycle and deformation
• Mechanics of earthquakes and faulting
• Structure and rheology of the lithosphere in active earthquake and volcanic regions
• Physics of transient deformation
• Active tectonics and earthquake hazard
• Vertical coastal movements from satellite altimetry and joint tide gauge observations
• Inversion and forward modeling software development for observations from satellite GOCE and SWARM
• Induced deformation from fluids, their modeling and observation.
• Tilt strain observations and Space geodetic observations.
• Sesimic networks, strong motion networks. International networking. Real time alert systems.
• Earthquake site effects, soil structure interaction, building monitoring, Earthquake Early warning.