Mattia Pistone comes from a family of physicians. Growing up in Italy, he assumed he would become one, too. But in high school, he took a class in geographical astronomy that changed his mind.
Geographical astronomy is a branch of mathematical geography that explores planets and other solid bodies in space, including Earth and its volcanoes. Pistone came home from that class and informed his grandmother he had decided to study rocks instead of human anatomy.
His grandmother wasn’t pleased.
“‘You’re an idiot,’” Pistone recalled her jokingly telling him. His entire family was shocked by his decision to step away from the medical profession.
Today, those same family members are cheering Pistone from afar.
An emerging international leader in volcanology, with simultaneous investigations underway in Sicily, Ecuador, the Arctic poles, and the Italian Alps, Pistone serves as assistant professor of petrology and volcanology in the ӣƵ’s . His lab bears the name “Magma Mia!”, a tongue-in-cheek homage to his Italian roots. In 2024, he was named distinguished lecturer for the Geological Society of America’s Continental Scientific Drilling Program Division, where he delivers talks on deep-earth drilling and argues that humanity’s future and the ground beneath our feet are inextricably linked.
“Volcanologists are ‘Earth-care professionals,’” he said, borrowing a phrase from a former mentor. “We measure the pulses, the rates of volcanic processes, like medical doctors do with human patients. And petrologists are the Earth’s pathologists, studying bodies—in this case, ancient rocks—to understand our past, present, and potentially our future.”
From drilling boreholes into Earth’s unexplored depths to analyzing ancient volcanic ashes and predicting the magnitude of future eruptions, Pistone has made it his mission to understand the magmatic and volcanic systems that shape our planet. Studying one of Earth’s most destructive natural processes could help us protect human health and prepare for future disasters, whether natural or human induced—or both.
Mysteries beneath our feet
Geologists have long explored the transition from the Earth’s crust to its mantle, the thick layer of rock that comprises nearly 85% of our planet’s volume, playing a vital role in heat transfer and geological processes. For decades, reaching the mantle has been deemed impossible. Drilling equipment simply can’t make it that far down without being crushed by the immense pressure exerted by rocks. Now, however, an international team of scientists has found a way around that obstacle.
Pistone serves as one of seven principal investigators leading the DIVE project—Drilling the Ivrea-Verbano Zone—supported by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program. Comprised of scientists from Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France, and the United States, the DIVE team has set up operations at a location in the Western Alps where, thanks to how the mountains were formed, the crust-mantle interface resides quite close to the surface. In some places, it is just one kilometer deep, rather than the usual 35 to 40 kilometers. This unique topography means that what used to be an impossible dream—drilling into the mantle—is now within striking distance.
“It’s a little bit like cheating,” Pistone said. “But in a very smart way. We’ve found a way to explore rocks that otherwise would not be accessible anywhere else on the planet.”
The team completed phase one of the DIVE project in April 2024, successfully drilling two one-kilometer boreholes in Val d’Ossola, a region in Northwest Italy. At each drill site, cohorts of graduate students, early-career and senior scientists, and principal investigators worked for months to classify the rocks retrieved from the drill. They are now working to assess their petrological, geophysical, and microbiological characteristics.
“For scientists, the Earth’s interior has historically been more challenging to explore than the surface of the Moon or Mars,” said Pistone. “What we’ve done is like landing on the Moon for the first time.”
The second phase of the DIVE project will drill a four-kilometer borehole at a location in Italy’s Val Sesia region. Together, these investigations could give scientists new insights not only into the makeup of the Earth’s interior but also into the formation of volcanoes, whose magmas—molten or semi-molten rocks—can originate from deep within the mantle.
“It’s a new frontier,” Pistone said.
Volcanoes give us a precious opportunity to look into the past, present, and future of our planet. They provide a chance to explore how communities have responded to unimaginable challenges.
– Mattia Pistone, Assistant Professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Department of Geology
Forecasting the next eruption
ӣƵ senior Alexandra Grace Lang was participating in a recent field visit with the BIO-VOLCANO team at Mt. Etna, sponsored by the Teaming for Interdisciplinary Research Pre-Seed Program at ӣƵ. Comprised of ӣƵ researchers from geology, forestry, crop and soil sciences, plant biology, microbiology, and the Center for Applied Isotope Studies (CAIS), the team is investigating the impact of volcanic mercury on surrounding environments, including its effect on human health.
Lang and another student were on the mountaintop collecting soil samples when they noticed the wind change—an eruption was imminent. They hiked back to their car and drove quickly down the mountain to safety. By the time they reached the base, Etna had erupted.
Exploring how volcanoes were formed is one thing; predicting when and how they might erupt again is another challenge altogether.
Eruption forecasting, something of a Holy Grail for volcanologists, aims to safeguard human health by providing the necessary knowledge for communities and societies to protect themselves against imminent eruptions. This research is especially critical for the nearly 1.1 billion people—about one-seventh of the world’s population—living within 20 miles of an active volcano.
Pistone serves as the principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant aimed at bridging the gap between what we know about volcanos and what we can predict about future eruptions. Specifically, he’ll be working in Sicily to determine the level of gas accumulation in magmas at Mt. Etna prior to explosive episodes, a complex calculation that could support more accurate forecasting efforts going forward.
“Etna provides a huge amount of data, in part because it’s very well monitored already,” Pistone said. “Yet it’s one of the least understood volcanoes. We will study the key role played by volatile gases in controlling its eruption behavior.”
The project builds on a collaboration with scientists from the Osservatorio Etneo of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in Italy and the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) facility in Hamburg, Germany.
“Mt. Etna offers a key case where we can test strategies for forecasting eruptions,” Pistone said. “Long term, we could potentially conduct this type of analysis just before, or even well before, the next eruption.”
Also at Etna, the BIO-VOLCANO team is testing the theory that the level and rate of mercury accumulation in volcanic rocks has a positive correlation to the magnitude of eruptions. The more mercury in the soils, the greater the eruption—that’s their working hypothesis.
“Volcanoes are natural polluters,” Pistone said. “Mt. Etna is one of the largest emitters of mercury in the world. What happens to surrounding areas when these harmful metals are emitted?”
Big picture, the BIO-VOLCANO team seeks to push volcanology into new predictions and new forecasting methods. Pistone says that the widespread environmental impact of volcanic processes also needs attention.
“We intend to create a novel set of geo- and bioindicators for predicting the magnitude of these eruptions,” he said.
Once it was safe after the eruption, Lang returned to the crater and collected fresh tephra—rock fragments—ejected from the volcano. She now plans to pursue volcanology after graduation.
“I know what I want to do,” she said. “Monitoring, keeping communities aware of hazards—it’s important. And it’s been great to have Mattia as an advisor. He really knows the volcanology community.”
A “smoky” crater monitored by a station measuring gas emissions at Vulcano in Sicily. Yellow sulphur deposits can be seen in the upper right of the crater. (Photo courtesy of Mattia Pistone)
Understanding global climate change
Pistone’s research also targets Ecuador’s Chimborazo volcano, where he and his colleagues are working to understand the global impact of volcanoes on climate. With backing from ӣƵ’s Teaming for Interdisciplinary Research Pre-Seed program, the CLIMAX team—a transdisciplinary cohort of ӣƵ investigators led by Pistone—is examining Mt. Chimborazo’s potential role in a second-century climatic crisis, a disaster that might have reached as far the Roman Empire.
Last year, CLIMAX team members used radiocarbon dating to analyze samples of paleosol, a type of ancient soil, from Chimborazo. They found that the volcano explosively erupted around 160 A.D., far more recently than geologists had presumed. This period closely relates to anomalous climate events recorded in the ice cores of Greenland and West Antarctica. It also corresponds to the dates of the Antonine Plague, which devastated the Roman Empire during the same era.
“We may have the same volcanic material erupted by this volcano in Ecuador showing up in the ice cores in faraway parts of the globe,” Pistone said. “So now we can work backwards like crime detectives, starting from the scene at hand to determine what events might have caused it.”
The CLIMAX team has partnered with scientists from Europe and researchers from ESPOCH (Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo) to investigate cryptotephra—volcanic ash trapped within the ice cores—and compare it to volcanic deposits collected in Ecuador. If they find a match, it would confirm that Chimborazo may be listed as one of the volcanoes that can cause significant climate change on a global scale, establishing them as key modulators of our planet’s climate.
Making that discovery, however, could invite controversy.
“You don’t want a scenario where people start saying that climate change is only caused by volcanoes,” Pistone said. “We don’t want volcanoes to become the scapegoats for what’s driving climate change in our world today. They do likely modulate some climate dynamics. But the pollutants we produce as humans is far greater.”
The implication of these investigations for public planning or climate policy? Focus on what you can control, Pistone suggests.
“Human-driven pollution, we can do something about; volcanoes, not so much,” he said. “And if both events—the natural and the manmade—take place at once, then we will have a very destructive outcome.”
Carving out a seat at the table
For Pistone, who admits to sometimes feeling like a Ping-Pong ball as he navigates a career between Europe and the U.S., now is the perfect time to pursue this research—and ӣƵ is the ideal place. With its commitment to global engagement and finding solutions to urgent societal challenges, ӣƵ welcomes researchers who, while grounded in ӣƵ, connect the dots around the world.
“Volcanoes give us a precious opportunity to look into the past, present, and future of our planet,” Pistone said. “They provide a chance to explore how communities have responded to unimaginable challenges.”
Long term, Pistone wants the earth sciences to claim a greater role in national climate policy and decision making.
“When we talk about climate change, very few earth scientists are typically invited into the conversation,” he said. “They are rarely consulted. That needs to change. We need to claim a seat at the table.”
He hopes that the next generation of students will embrace geological careers with the same fervor as more traditional professions.
“I want students and their parents to see geology as having the same importance as becoming a medical doctor,” Pistone said. “After all, geologists are doctors—they are doctors of the Earth.
“How we understand our planet and how it cares for us are critically important questions, and we need more people asking them. That’s my hope.”
