Early applications of seismic reflection in Italy: Tiziano Rocco, Po Valley and Agip

Paolo Macini^1,3, Ezio Mesini¹ & Alessio Argentieri^2,3
1University of Bologna, Dept. of Civil, Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering, Via U. Terracini 28, 40131 - Bologna.
³Città metropolitana di Roma Capitale, Dipartimento XI "Geologico- Difesa del Suolo e Aree protette"
³Società Geologica Italiana - Sezione di Storia delle Geoscienze.
Corresponding author e-mail: paolo.macini@unibo.it

Tiziano Rocco (1908-1984) was a mining engineer involved since his early career in a new key activity for oil companies: applied geophysics. Hired by Agip in 1931, after a short period of training he led gravimetric, magnetic and electrical survey crews in Italy. Rocco soon learned that a new geophysical method for oil exploration had been successfully tested in the USA since the early 1930s: reflection seismology. Thanks to his vision and suggestions, Agip purchased two reflection seismic groups from an American contractor (not an easy decision at the time), which started to operate in the Po Valley in early 1940. Rocco left Agip in 1943, due to the turbulent events of the armistice and the German occupation of Italy. In 1945 he moved to Società Petrolifera Italiana and then to Western Geophysical. Back to Agip in 1951 as Director of Exploration, in the 1950s and ‘60s he contributed to the many company’s discoveries in Italy and foreign countries, as well as for the definition of the geological structures of the Po Valley. He retired in 1968, and in the same year he was elected President of the Italian Geological Society for the years 1968-69.

AGIP, exploration geology, History of Geosciences, seismic surveys, Tiziano Rocco.