News 2023

The second niche, designed to frame the entrance of the new side tunnel, has been successfully finished just before the holiday break. 

Congratulations to our team member and senior researcher Luca Dal Zilio for being awarded the Jason Morgan Early Career Award by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Luca's principal research interests include the development and use of physics-​based computational simulations to characterize and understand earthquake physics, fault mechanics, mechanics of porous media, lithospheric deformation and seismicity, and surface evolution.

A first step in the construction of the new side tunnel has been made: A first niche located in the main tunnel has recently been finished. It will be used for maneuvering vehicles and storing equipment that is needed for further construction and excavation activities.

This week marks a new chapter for the BedrettoLab, as we start the construction of a 125m long new side tunnel. Situated about 400 meters behind the geothermal testbed (TM 2000 - 2100), this side tunnel is a crucial part of the Fault Activation and Earthquake Rupture (FEAR) project.

Today another small stimulation is taking place which will be the last stimulation of this series that started in July. The same procedure from the previous two stimulations will be repeated to check if earlier results can be replicated and show to what end the reservoir is durable.

Yesterday, on August 13th, the BedrettoLab was part of the local event 'Mangia e Cammina'. About 1,200 visitors hiked through the Bedretto valley, ending their tour at the entrance of the Bedretto tunnel. There, the BedrettoLab team, supported by SUPSI students, organized various activities.

The main scientific work of the BedrettoLab research takes place in boreholes which usually undergo thorough investigations. With the different sensors in the boreholes of the BedrettoLab, the research team already has a deep knowledge of the rock volume on a macroscopic level. Recently, experiments in the Rock Physics and Mechanics Laboratory (RPMLab) at ETH Zurich took place to learn more about the behaviour of the Rotondo granite on a microscopic level.

Kai Bröker, PhD student of the BedrettoLab, was recently awarded with the best paper award at the 57th Symposium of the American Rock Mechanics Association Symposium in Atlanta for the paper “Hydro-geomechanical observations during multistage hydraulic stimulation at the Bedretto Underground Laboratory, Switzerland”. Only 6 out of 600 submitted papers are honoured with this award.

You can now download two reports summarizing all scientific activities between July 2022 and June 2023 conducted by our team in the BedrettoLab.

As part of their yearly retreat, the ETH Board visited the BedrettoLab last week. 22 members toured the Bedretto tunnel to get in touch with ETH’s unique underground laboratory. The visit offered an excellent opportunity to witness firsthand the cutting-edge research infrastructure and the possibilites it presents.

After a series of longer stimulation phases in spring, the BedrettoLab team is starting with two additional stimulations today.

The construction work for the tunnel road expansion has been completed recently. It kept the operations team busy the last 1.5 years. As planned, the road was at first paved up to 3,300 m. For safety reasons, it was then decided to extend the two-lane road through the entire tunnel which is 5,250 meters long.

Last weekend, more than 200 visitors came to Bedretto and toured the BedrettoLab.

We are delighted to invite you to visit our laboratory on Saturday, 3 June. The BedrettoLab has now been in operation for four years and has become a unique underground laboratory run by ETH Zurich. It offers a wide range of possibilities for research in the fields of earthquake physics, geothermal energy and geobiology. In addition to the state-of-the-art research infrastructures of our laboratory, the Bedretto tunnel offers an exciting chance to walk through the deep geology of the Alps.

Alberto Ceccato is a structural geologist and investigates geological phenomena such as earthquakes and faults.

Professor Domenico Giardini led a group of enthusiasts that had the idea to establish a unique, large-scale rock laboratory in Switzerland. 

After a break filled with analyses and preparations, the BedrettoLab team is conducting a new series of stimulations in continuation of the VALTER project and in preparation of the FEAR project. The first stimulation is starting this week with relatively small volumes of water being injected during a few hours.