At extensional volcanic arcs, faulting often acts to localize magmatism. Santorini is located on the extended continental crust of the Aegean microplate and is one of the most active volcanoes of the Hellenic arc, but the relationship between tectonism and magmatism remains poorly constrained. As part of the Plumbing Reservoirs Of The Earth Under Santorini experiment, seismic data were acquired across the Santorini caldera and the surrounding region using a dense amphibious array of >14,300 marine sound sources and 156 short-period seismometers, covering an area 120 km by 45 km. Here a P wave velocity model of the shallow, upper-crustal structure (<3-km depth), obtained using travel time tomography, is used to delineate fault zones, sedimentary basins, and tectono-magmatic lineaments. Our interpretation of tectonic boundaries and regional faults are consistent with prior geophysical studies, including the location of basin margins and E-W oriented basement faults within the Christiana Basin west of Santorini. Reduced seismic velocities within the basement east of Santorini, near the Anydros and Anafi Basins, are coincident with a region of extensive NE-SW faulting and active seismicity. The structural differences between the eastern and western sides of Santorini are in agreement with previously proposed models of regional tectonic evolution. Additionally, we find that regional magmatism has been localized in NE-SW trending basin-like structures that connect the Christiana, Santorini, and Kolumbo volcanic centers. At Santorini itself, we find that magmatism has been localized along NE-SW trending lineaments that are subparallel to dikes, active faults, and regional volcanic chains. These results show strong interaction between magmatism and active deformation.
Despite multidisciplinary evidence for crustal magma accumulation below Santorini volcano, Greece, the structure and melt content of the shallow magmatic system remain poorly constrained. We use three-dimensional (3-D) velocity models from tomographic inversions of active-source seismic P-wave travel times to identify a pronounced low-velocity anomaly (–21%) from 2.8 km to 5 km depth localized below the northern caldera basin. This anomaly is consistent with depth estimates of pre-eruptive storage and a recent inflation episode, supporting the interpretation of a shallow magma body that causes seismic attenuation and ray bending. A suite of synthetic tests shows that the geometry is well recovered while a range of melt contents (4%–13% to fully molten) are allowable. A thin mush region (2%–7% to 3%–10% melt) extends from the main magma body toward the northeast, observed as low velocities confined by tectono-magmatic lineaments. This anomaly terminates northwest of Kolumbo; little to no melt underlies the seamount from 3 to 5 km depth. These structural constraints suggest that crustal extension and edifice loads control the geometry of magma accumulation and emphasize that the shallow crust remains conducive to melt storage shortly after a caldera-forming eruption.
Highlights: (3-5 bullets, 85 characters max) 1. There is a shallow low-velocity, high-porosity volume in the north-central caldera 2. Vents of the first 3 LBA eruption phases correlate with this inner structure 3. Inner collapse involved reverse faults, volcanic deposits, and/or rock fractures 4. The low-density volume may have caused 2011-2012 inflation to localize beneath it 5. The outer topographic caldera formed by relatively coherent down drop *Manuscript Click here to view linked References
In this paper, we combine active and passive source P wave seismic data to tomographically image the magmatic system beneath Newberry Volcano, located east of the Cascade arc. By using both travel times from local active sources and delay times from teleseismic earthquakes recorded on closely spaced seismometers (300–800 m), we significantly improve recovery of upper crustal velocity structure (<10 km depth). The tomographic model reveals a low‐velocity feature between 3 and 5 km depth that lies beneath the caldera, consistent with a magma body. In contrast to earlier tomographic studies, where elevated temperatures were sufficient to explain the recovered low velocities, the larger amplitude low‐velocity anomalies in our joint tomography model require low degrees of partial melt (∼10%), and a minimum melt volume of ∼2.5 km3. Furthermore, synthetic tests suggest that even greater magnitude low‐velocity anomalies, and by inference larger volumes of magma (up to 8 km3), are needed to explain the observed waveform variability. The lateral extent and shape of the inferred magma body indicates that the extensional tectonic regime at Newberry influences the emplacement of magmatic intrusions. Our study shows that jointly inverting active source and passive source seismic data improves tomographic imaging of the shallow crustal seismic structure of volcanic systems and that active source experiments would benefit from longer deployment times to also record teleseismic sources.
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