Paola Vannucchi

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This transcript is based on a video-recorded interview deposited at MarE3, JAMSTEC (Yokosuka, Japan).

The transcripts of the research project Oral Histories of Scientific Ocean Drilling are polished representations of oral conversations, and are intended solely for the purpose of preserving and documenting personal accounts and memories. They are not a literary product, and are not intended to exhibit literary qualities.

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Interview of Paola Vannucchi by Beatriz Martinez-Rius on 2025 April 29, International Center Vienna (Vienna, Austria). [link]

Beatriz Martinez-Rius (BMR): Today is April 29th of 2025. I am Beatriz Martinez-Rius, historian of science at JAMSTEC, and I am with Paola Vannucchi. Thank you very much.

Paola Vannucchi (PV): Thank you.

BMR: Can you first tell me your name, your position and affiliation?

PV: Sure. Paola Vannucchi, I am a full professor at the University of Florence in Italy. I study tectonics, structural geology; how rock deforms.

BMR: What has been your relationship to scientific ocean drilling, in one sentence?

PV: Ah, it has been a big passion (laughs). I started when I was a PhD student, going on my first expedition, and the last one was exactly one year ago. So, a big part of my scientific life.

BMR: How did you first get interested about Earth sciences?

PV: That’s a good question. It really came at a very, sort of last week – when I was in high school, I was very attracted by Physics. And then, at some point, I started to think, “What about the Earth? What about how it works? What about the discoveries that still we can do within our planet?” I was very interested in doing Astronomy, looking at the sky. At some point, I started to think, “Well, look more closely to what we do”. And so, I went into Earth science.

BMR: Where was it? In which university?

PV: University of Florence. I am from Florence. I traveled and it is sort of closing the circle, going back where exactly I started my career as Earth scientist.

BMR: Was there someone in your undergrad or graduate studies who was influential for you to choose the subject of tectonics?

PV: Yeah, actually, I was still a student and the professor that later on became my advisor was in contact with a professor in the US. They just organized a conference together in those years. The professor in the US was Casey Moore. He invited, basically, he asked my professor in Florence whether he had a student that could go to Santa Cruz, where Casey was, and this person in Florence thought about me. So, I said, “Sure, of course I want to go to the US!”. Then I met Casey and, through him, I became fascinated with ocean drilling and marine science.

BMR: What kind of things surprised you about going to the US? I guess that the environment at the university was very different, between there and Italy.

PV: It was very different, yeah. Of course, at the time I didn’t even speak very good English, so it was a completely a different world. It was like, finally I was on the California coast and everything was cool (laughs) – What can I say? It was a different world. I guess I was really in contact with people that were doing cutting edge science, particularly on structural geology and tectonics, looking exactly at the kind of rocks from a modern perspective – I mean, looking at modern systems exactly in the same kind of situation that I had in my backyard in Italy, but a fossil system. So, it was very fascinating doing this comparison: what can we learn from a modern system that we can sort of transpose to a fossil one? And what can we take advantage of the fossil system to study the modern systems? It was ideal, in that sense.

BMR: I have two questions now – I’d like to ask you more about Casey Moore. What kind of things did you learn from him that have been valuable in your career? You can approach it in the direction that you prefer. And, in relation to that, how did you first learn about scientific ocean drilling?

PV: Casey was… Really inspiring. He was really, really inspiring, and in a very gentle way. You know, you never had the idea that Casey was steering you in any kind of a direction. It was always sort of… Trying to take very seriously the reasoning that was going on, for example, in my head – which, obviously, the different level of experience was huge! But he was never telling me, “No, this is wrong; you should go in that direction”. He would actually really try to foster whatever was my idea, and he would let me see what was wrong or right. I think I was really fortunate to have that kind of experience. And, obviously, when I went to the US, I was expecting – I mean, coming from a very traditional academic environment – I was thinking that I would find this, you know, old professor with the right[?] beard. I mean, remember that at that time we really communicated only with telephone, with transcontinental calls (laughs). So, it was not as easy as now to start a WhatsApp call or whatever. I was imagining to have someone to really tell me what is wrong and what is right, and sort of teach me in that way. And instead, it was a very different way of doing things. And it was him. I mean, when it when I went to Santa Cruz with my samples from the Northern Apennines, the thin sections and all the things ready to do, it was part of my undergrad thesis; and he told me that I should go on an expedition that studied accretionary prisms. At the time, even before I went to Costa Rica, there was another expedition in the Mediterranean, in the Hellenic Arc, offshore Cyprus — and actually Angelo Camerlanghi was involved with it. What I did was, when I came back to Italy, I contacted the IODP Italia and the person who was in charge of IODP Italia was Maria Bianca Cita. When I told her that I was interested in working with subduction systems she was, first of all, very happy because in Italy we always had a tradition of micropaleontologists and, in a way, it was instead someone who was doing something different. She put me in contact with Angelo, who had just finished his PhD or something like that. Maybe, if not to finish the PhD, it was really soon after that he did. At the time, we even talked about whether I could go on the Mediterranean Expedition, but it was not possible. But, yeah, I guess I was really lucky to find Casey on one side, but also Maria Bianca on the other side, in Italy, that was encouraging me to keep going. Because the thing is that, you know, here there is this program that studies the history of Earth science and I was really a student (laughs), a PhD student. You think that there is not a place for you in the program and instead, no. There is, indeed. And this is what’s wonderful about what the ocean drilling has done through the years.

BMR: Yes, you realize that about one third of the science party is early career scientists, and this really trains generations and keeps the program rolling. Because maybe an early career now will be mentoring a new generation in twenty years.

PV: Yes, absolutely. And that’s the beauty really, also. I mean, there’s not only science. There is also this community, welcoming community aspect, that is nice.

BMR: What was your first ocean drilling expedition?

PV: My first expedition was ODP leg 117, offshore Costa Rica.

BMR: And how came that you get involved in that expedition?

PV: As I said, I was working on this mountain chain that has a Cretaceous to Eocene history of accretion. Casey suggested me to apply to this Costa Rica expedition, to look at a modern subduction zone. And, actually, the person who was in charge of that expedition was also a Santa Cruz professor, Eli Silver, who I met when I went to visit Santa Cruz. So, I felt a sort of comfortable applying for that expedition, as well.

BMR: What do you remember about being on board, about the science, about the people…?

PV: At first, it was pretty… You know, I’m pretty shy, in a way, and as I said my English was not perfect. But I really found an environment that, again, was valuing whatever my opinion on the cores that were coming on deck was. It was really, again, listening to whatever my opinion was. And I also remember obviously the international exposure, the exposure to an international crew; the different types of – there were people that were at the end of their career and people like me, who was doing a PhD, and [the relationship was] very collegial. I really liked it. And what I remember is that always – and this is also what I feel now – when a new core comes on deck, the idea that I am the first person to actually see it. In that expedition, we actually were able to drill through the plate boundary. That was a big thing, when you sort of see the plate boundary between the Caribbean and the Cocos. It is like, “Wow, really? We drilled it?”.

BMR: Just to confirm, this plate boundary is only at sea.

PV: Yeah. Actually, on land, there is an old one that is… But to actually see the actual fault was really exciting… And we knew that we were going into that. So, we were waiting – sort of not going to sleep but wanting to see the cores as they were coming up, because you start to see the first deformation hints, and then the deformation gets more intense, more intense, more intense, and you know from the seismic sections that you are there, but you don’t know whether it is core – I don’t know – number 48, 49 or 50 (laughs).

BMR: How your relationship with the Costa Rica area evolved after that?

PV: We wanted to give more context to what we found offshore. So, I started to look onshore and I started to — well, first of all, have contacts with Costa Rican scientists; again, a very nice community – and we started to do some work, like mapping and looking at some particular outcrops… And then, what happened was that Chikyu and the new philosophy of looking at plate boundaries where they’re able to generate earthquakes came around. And Costa Rica, in the south, has an aseismic ridge that is subducting, that is the Cocos ridge. And the subduction of these sort of big elements, much thicker, the effect on the subduction system, is actually able to bring it much shallower. And so, it is one of the very fewplaces where we can reach the so-called seismogenic zone at a shallower level than usual.

So, I came into contact with another very famous scientist within the IODP, who is Roland Von Huene, who was always very interested again in the Central America tectonic setting. And with him and another scientist who at the time was in Germany, Cesar Ranero, we started to think about the how to approach the drilling into that seismogenic zone. To prepare that expedition, I started to look also to [ODP] Leg 170, which was in the northern part of Costa Rica; and instead, this setting that we wanted to explore is in the southern part. So, I started to look at the onshore part, and also started to write proposals and see whether we could start exploring also the southern part of Costa Rica.

BMR: What are the differences between other subduction zones like, let’s say, the Nankai Trough and Costa Rica? And I’m thinking not only in terms of the science or what you can find, but also the logistic or the community challenges?

PV: Well, obviously, Costa Rica doesn’t have the same kind of infrastructure or even scientific community that Japan has – even though I have to say that Costa Rican scientists have been always very much involved and absolutely outstanding in what science they have produced later on. But even just in terms of numbers, it is a very different community. The thing is that Central America has always been a place where the US community has been concentrating, because of accessibility, because of the scientific part, that makes sort of – if you consider Nankai and you consider Central America, they are sort of twin regions in many different ways. I won’t go into details, but just think about the volcanic arc. In Central America it is extremely developed. It is one of these systems that is sort of the paradigm of volcanic arcs. In Japan there are volcanoes, but certainly it is not that kind of activity and development of an arc. Just to give an example.

So, even though there was not a strong Costa Rican community, in a way, there was a strong interest from also the US community to go there. And also, at the time, there was in Europe as well because, again, through Germany they had a project that was looking at the so-called subduction factory. What goes in, in subduction system, and what comes out? Again, Central America is one of the better places that you can think of to study these kinds of processes.

BMR: Tell me more about that expedition. When did it happen?

PV: CRISP got two expeditions. One was in 2011, and one was in 2012. I should also mention something that has always been extremely… How can I say? That has strike me, in a way. The expedition started about a week after the Tohoku earthquake, in 2011. And the co-chief scientist of that expedition, [IODP] expedition 334, is Japanese. He was Kohtaro Ujiie. And we had onboard eleven Japanese scientists. When this happened, I thought, “There is no way they’re going to come”. And instead, they all came. If I think about it, I’ve always sort of… Well, first of all, thanked Kohtaro and all of the other scientists. But it also sort of tells me a lot about, again, the community and how we care for science – a lot.

BMR: Also, it kind of gives a sense of purpose to the research that you are doing. In this sense, what kind of scientific exchanges have been between different communities for studying subduction zones? I mean, groups of scientists studying subduction zones in different regions across the world, like Cascadia, or Nankai, or Costa Rica.

PV: I have to say that, in a way, we are a community. I never felt like – I don’t know if this is what you mean but – I never felt like, “I am an Italian scientist, I am focused on what’s going on in my region and, yes, I may go to Japan, but I just sort of go there because, I don’t know, I want to have two months of…”. I’ve always had the impression that it’s a community that is really interested in the processes that are occurring at different subduction systems. And, in a way, it doesn’t matter whether this is Cascadia, or Central America, or Japan. We are interested in science. This is part of what’s going on in our planet. It just happens to be in a nation that is called Japan, in a way (laughs). But it’s part of a natural process. And, in a way, for me, there is no difference if it is a Japanese scientist, a US scientist, an Italian scientist or whatever; we are a community that is interested in a process. So, the exchanges, I would say, are extremely tightly knit.

BMR: I see. It’s not that theirs is a regional exchange, so to speak. It’s studying the same processes in different areas and bringing them together.

PV: Yes, exactly.

BMR: You served as co-chief scientist on that IODP expedition. How your perspective on science changes when you are a member of the science party versus when you are an organizer and co-chief?

PV: It changes a lot, actually (laughs), because when you are a co-chief, you have to take decisions that sometimes are not exactly the decisions you would like to make (laughs). And it goes all the way from, “which samples go to who?”; you might want to try to not duplicate science, scientific projects, and then you force people to sort of say, “Yeah, but, you know, this part of your project probably should be done in collaboration with someone else…” Probably, the person doesn’t even know [the other person] before coming into the ship. So, it is a difficult work. And then, obviously, there are problems when things in drilling don’t go exactly the way they are planned (laughs). You have to leave one of the sites, and some people on board maybe they had the major reason to be there because they wanted the cores from that site, and you have to tell them, “No… We cannot go any further”.

And instead, if you are on the other part, you are always sort of fighting for more (laughs). And I sort of like more being on the other side…

BMR: On the science party?

Yeah, sure (laughs). First of all, because also there is a much more hands on the cores. As a co-chief scientist, you’re reading a lot of reports; you’re sort of always at the interface between what is operations and what is science. I like doing the science part; I really much enjoy… Usually the kind of rocks, or sediments I should say, that I am interested in are muds. So, I like to have my hands dirty with mud (laughs).

BMR: Now that we’re talking about being a co-chief. Have you had any kind of equivalent position in other international programs, groups? Not exactly co-chief, but a decision-making position.

PV: Yeah. Probably when we are PIs of a project, I guess, and managing not only the science part, but… When you apply to a project, there is also the budget side. It is another part that I don’t particularly like. And there is, obviously, the fact that you have to produce, in a way, some scientific outcome – papers, reports…

BMR: Is there something that you’ve learned in scientific ocean drilling that has been useful in other positions? – a skill, mindset…

PV: Sure. A lot. I would say most of my skills probably come from having been involved in IODP. It goes from being extremely aware of different people and different cultures… Nowadays, you might have PhDs or postdocs coming from different parts of the world, and they may have a different way of approaching life. So, there is this respect for other people. And even the way that we have been taught, in this case, for me, tectonics or structural geology, may be a little bit different. And so – I don’t like to say it because it sounds bad, but how to manage, in a way, people. But also how, for example, to review a proposal, what to look for; how we go from a proposal to actually implementing the proposal… I would say that a lot of what I have learned in my skillset comes from IODP.

BMR: Looking forward, let’s say thirty years, where would you like to see the field of subduction zones and tectonics? What things are still to be done and learn about this field, that are important?

PV: Subduction zones represent some of the biggest tectonic provinces on our planet. They produce the biggest earthquakes; they produce even tsunamis… Hazards that, in a way, are big. They have some of the most fascinating expression, like volcanoes… What we have to learn about them is a lot, because the problem with the modern subduction zones is, if you want to study in situ systems that, in a way, are not overprinted by later on deformation… I can go in the northern Apennines, for example, and study these fossil systems. But I always have the problem that what I’m looking at has been, for example, exhumed and brought in a way that it is already an overprint, that I have to work with. I can sort of indirectly reconstruct what was the environment that I am looking at.

So, obviously accessing in situ samples is absolutely… The golden opportunity. The problem with subduction zones is that they are in really inaccessible areas. Even the shallowest part has water on top, and it’s not just a few meters (laughs). We are talking about the deepest parts of the oceans. Then, they are places where stresses are working, and this causes a lot of problems. And usually, they are even a made up of mud. So, lots of clay minerals, and drilling and clay minerals often don’t go really well together (laughs). So, yeah, there is a lot to learn.

Jus to say one on which we are busy now and for more than ten years: we are trying to access the seismogenic zone, and we haven’t been able to do that. So, I would say that this is still one of the main points that we want to achieve.

BMR: Let me ask you one more question. Looking back at your career, what are the things you are most proud of that you have achieved? And it can be any kind of thing. It can be in the science but also in any other aspect.

PV: Oh, wow. This is a difficult question… I hope that I have been able to stimulate discussion in the community. That my ideas – you know, sometimes, as a scientist, you sort of agree with what the community says; sometimes you don’t; and if you don’t, obviously there are some frictions. But I hope that, whether my ideas were in agreement or not, they were always stimulating for people to think about, in a way. So, if my ideas were able to stimulate some discussion… That, I think, is it.

And, maybe… You know, I come from a city that – how can I say? – one of the things we are proud of in my hometown, in Florence, is to be critical (laughs). I hope that this skill has been also transferred to other scientists that they have been coming across, particularly young scientists, like my PhD students, my postdocs… That they have always a critical approach to science.

BMR: Thank you very much for your time, it was great.

PV: No, thank you very much.

Paola Vannucchi, left, and Eirini Poulaki (University of Miami) look at a rock sample at the JOIDES Resolution laboratory during IODP Expedition 402. Credit: Kristin Bronk, IODP JRSO,