No abstract

The Laguna del Maule (LdM) volcanic field in the southern volcanic zone of the Chilean Andes exhibits a large volume of rhyolitic material erupted during postglacial times (20–2 ka). Since 2007, LdM has experienced an unrest episode characterized by high rates of deformation. Analysis of new GPS and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data reveals uplift rates greater than 190 mm/yr between January 2013 and November 2014. The geodetic data are modeled as an inflating sill at depth. The results are used to calculate the temporal evolution of the vertical displacement. The best time function for modeling the InSAR data set is a double exponential model with rates increasing from 2007 through 2010 and decreasing slowly since 2010. We hypothesize that magma intruding into an existing silicic magma reservoir is driving the surface deformation. Modeling historical uplift at Yellowstone, Long Valley, and Three Sisters volcanic fields suggests a common temporal evolution of vertical displacement rates.

Explosive eruptions of large-volume rhyolitic magma systems are common in the geologic record and pose a major potential threat to society. Unlike other natural hazards, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, a large rhyolitic volcano may provide warning signs long before a caldera-forming eruption occurs. Yet, these signs-and what they imply about magma-crust dynamics-are not well known. This is because we have learned how these systems form, grow, and erupt mainly from the study of ash flow tuffs deposited tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago or more, or from the geophysical imaging of the unerupted portions of the reservoirs beneath the associated calderas. The Laguna del Maule Volcanic Field, Chile, includes an unusually large and recent concentration of silicic eruptions. Since 2007, the crust there has been inflating at an astonishing rate of at least 25 cm/yr. This unique opportunity to investigate the dynamics of a large rhyolitic system while magma migration, reservoir growth, and crustal deformation are actively under way is stimulating a new international collaboration. Findings thus far lead to the hypothesis that the silicic vents have tapped an extensive layer of crystal-poor, rhyolitic melt that began to form atop a magmatic mush zone that was established by ca. 20 ka with a renewed phase of rhyolite eruptions during the Holocene. Modeling of surface deformation, magnetotelluric data, and gravity changes suggest that magma is currently intruding at a depth of ~5 km. The next phase of this investigation seeks to enlarge the sets of geophysical and geochemical data and to use these observations in numerical models of system dynamics.

Cordón Caulle is a large fissural volcano that has erupted rhyodacitic magma of the same composition in its past three historical eruptions in 1921, 1960, and 2011–2012. There was significant ground deformation observed before and during the 2011–2012 eruption—here we use C and X band interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) time series results to document posteruptive uplift up to 0.8 m between March 2012 and May 2015, with line‐of‐sight rates up to 45 cm/yr that have been largely aseismic, along with subsidence in the 2011–2012 lava flow. The 2012 uplift rate is one of the largest for silicic systems and was likely produced by the intrusion of ~0.125 km3 of magma in the same tectonically controlled plumbing system that has been active during the historical eruptions. Nevertheless, the uplift ended before the reservoir refilled with the erupted volume, maybe due to a change in the pressure gradient produced by the 2011–2012 eruption.

A warped paleoshoreline records 10,000 years of magma-driven surface deformation above an active rhyolite-producing reservoir.