Special Session 1

This session is devoted to issues related to the knowledge and conservation of natural and artificial stone materials constituting built heritage both in subaerial and in marine environment.
The Session is applied to interdisciplinary expertise, resolving problems related to preservation and conservation science, weathering of movable and immovable Culturale Heritage, with the aim to understand and improve our knowledge of material culture.
Contributions on novel methods and procedures, technologies for the conservation and the restoration of built heritage, archaeological and historical artefacts are encouraged. Moreover, new researches and innovative/effective approaches for the characterization of ancient materials (stone, plasters, mortars) will be also included.

Topics particularly welcomed include:

• Deterioration of Cultural Heritages, in particular Agents and Mechanisms of Decay (Physical, Chemical and Biological);
• New Technologies for Analysis, Protection and Conservation , in particular Nanomaterials and other Products for Conservation;
• Underwater Cultural Heritage in particular Protection and Conservation of archaeological sites, buildings; Evaluation of Underwater Decay;
• New Technologies and methods for the characterization of natural and artificial stone materials.

Mauro Francesco La Russa was born in Lachen (CH) on September 30 1977. He took an MSc in Geological Sciences at the University of Calabria (2002) and a PhD in Petrography and Petrology (2005-2008) at the University of Catania. Since December 2008, he has been a Researcher at the Department of Biology, Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Calabria. He is involved in teaching activity on several courses in the fields of petrographic and mineralogical disciplines and geo-mineralogical studies applied to the conservation and restoration of Cultural Heritage. He is the scientific representative responsible for several agreements with national and international research institutions and Universities, as well as for diagnostic analysis carried out on the Trevi Fountain during the 2014/2015 restoration. He is the scientific representative responsible for several national and international research projects. At present, his main research interests concern the field of Cultural Heritage and, in particular, the characterization of stone building materials, their decay and the experimentation of innovative protective products as well as the archaeometric study of chronologically different ceramic remains. Some of the investigated sites include: the Trevi Fountain (Italy), Herculaneum (Italy), cave churches (Tokaly in Cappadocia, Turkey), Pompei (Italy), the underwater site of Baia (Campania, Italy), the Val di Noto area (Sicily, Italy), the non-catholic cemetery of Rome (Italy). He is author and co-author of 88 Peer-reviewed publications , 3 Book chapters, 115 Abstracts and proceedings, 2 patents.

Paola Fermo graduated in chemistry in 1993; researcher in Analytical Chemistry at University of Milan since 1999; since 2014 associate professor in Analytical Chemistry. The research is in the field of environmental and applied analytical chemistry as well as archaeometry. Principal investigator of national and international projects; author of 111 scientific publications on international peer-review journals (Scopus and Web of Science) with h-index (Scopus) =29 and 2403 citations (Scopus); 20 conference proceeding; 16 book chapters; more than 200 communications in national and international congresses; invited speakers in national and international congresses.