## 6 Conclusions  
Thermally induced deformations are among the lesser studied factors that can directly control rock mass stability. The assessment of the role played by near-surface temperature fluctuations in \"preparing\" jointed rock masses toward prone-to-fall conditions represents a research topic that has acquired growing interest among engineering geology researchers over recent years. The main objective of this work was to provide novel insights into the role of near-surface temperature fluctuations in inducing irreversible deformations on jointed rock masses. A semi-automatic approach was implemented to identify clusters of fracture-related MS events over long-term monitoring windows. The proposed workflow allowed the detection and classification of energetic signals and the construction of a dataset of 273 MS events over a 20-month monitoring period. Despite some limitations, the statistical analysis performed on the dataset suggests that the manually classified MS events can be reliably considered as indicators of irreversible deformations resulting from fracturing processes in the rock mass. The comparison between microseismicity and environmental factors highlighted the primary role played by continuous near-surface temperature fluctuations and extreme thermal transients in inducing nonlinear deformations in the rock mass. Although a robust statistical analysis could not be performed due to data discontinuity, the comparison of monitoring periods characterized by the most intense MS activity sheds light on a peculiar distribution of MS events during the heating and cooling phases of the rock mass in relation to different environmental conditions. In this sense, MS events tend to cluster during the cooling phases of the rock mass when average climatic conditions are dominant. Conversely, their frequency dramatically increases during the heating phases when brief and violent meteorological events occur. This differentiation which characterizes the local microseismicity could be considered to be a direct consequence of distinct driving mechanisms at the base of localized small-scale failure events. Nonetheless, a clear cause-and-effect relationship between MS events and near-surface thermal fields is difficult to discern due to the concurrent influence of multiple environmental factors. For this reason, longer monitoring datasets with a higher number of MS events are needed to better comprehend the contribution of environmental factors to the destabilization of jointed rock masses. Figure 15: Temporal evolution of displacement (blue and green lines) and rock temperature (orange line) monitoring timeseries recorded by the permanent multiparametric monitoring system at the Acuto field laboratory. **Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, G.G., D.D. and S.M. ; methodology, G.G. and D.D. ; software, G.G. and D.D. ; formal analysis, G.G. ; investigation, G.G. ; resources, G.G., D.D. and S.M. ; data curation, G.G. ; writing--original draft preparation, G.G. ; writing--review and editing, G.G., D.D. and S.M. ; visualization, G.G. ; supervision, S.M. ; project administration, G.G., D.D. and S.M. ; funding acquisition, G.G., D.D. and S.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. **Funding:** This study is part of the Ph.D. research project of [PERSON] and was funded by the Department of Earth Sciences of the Sapienza University of Rome and CERI research center under the framework of the Ministry of University (MUR) \"Departments of Excellence\" project (2018-2022), which includes the Acuto field laboratory as an innovative natural test-site for landslide risk management (scientist responsible: [PERSON]; email: [EMAIL_ADDRESS]). **Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable. **Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable. **Data Availability Statement:** Data and codes used in this study are available upon request from the corresponding author.