Prime immagini tobi dei fondali del tirreno centro-meridionale (settore orientale)

In September/October 1998 a cruise was organised onboard of C.N.R. Vessel "Urania", to study instability phenomena occurring on the flanks of Italian volcanic islands and continental slopes. The main tool of investigation has been the deep-tow vehicle TOBI, so the cruise was named T.I.VOL.I. (TOBI in Italian VOLcanic Islands). The use of TOBI was funded by the European programs E.A.S.S.S. and researchers from several Italian and foreign institutions participated the cruise. The TOBI deep-tow vehicke represents one of the most advanced instrument to investigate the deep sea, so absolutely new information were acquired on deep-sea processes and structures of the central-southern Tyrrhenian Sea; the article illustrates the preliminary data of the long-range side scan sonar mounted on the TOBI and points out the main features depicted during the cruise. Among them: a large debris-avalanche (never hypothesised before) that has been discovered offshore southern Ischia coast, as well as spectacular turbiditic flows on the Marsili abyssal plain, debris flows on the flank of Stromboli volcano, presence of gas-related structures in the Southern Latium upper continental slope, large bedforms and instability phenomena in the canyons scouring the south-eastern Tyyhenian basin.