Mount Meager is an active volcano in the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt in British Columbia, Canada, characterized by a high geothermal potential and a broad range of natural hazards. It is located 60 km northwest from the nearest town of Pemberton, with a population of approximately 2,500, and 150 km north of Vancouver (Figure 1). The volcano was home to the largest recorded landslide in Canada in 2010 (Roberti, Ward, de Vries, van Wyk, Friele, et al., 2018) but also offers high geothermal potential (Jessop et al., 1991). This fascinating environment may be further destabilized by melting glaciers, related to climate change in the region (Roberti, Ward, de Vries, van Wyk, Falorni, et al., 2018). The volcano poses significant risks to the population in the adjacent Lillooet Valley, and geothermal development requires careful hazard assessment. This provides numerous motivations to increase our understanding of Mount Meager and expand monitoring.
This page was generated automatically upon download from the ETH Zurich Research Collection. For more information please consult the Terms of use. ETH LibraryPlain Language Summary Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is an emerging technology to measure microscopic ground motion by sending laser pulses through fiber-optic cables, which are commonly used for telecommunication. A cable of several kilometers length provides thousands of measurement points, which can yield highly detailed information about the propagation of seismic waves excited by earthquakes. The ease of deploying a fiber-optic cable, compared to the challenge of installing thousands of conventional seismometers, opens new opportunities for earthquake studies in remote and hazardous areas. Here, we present the first application of DAS in a volcano-glacial environment. Mount Meager, the site of the experiment in British Columbia, is an active volcano known for its geothermal potential and for hosting the largest landslide in recorded Canadian history. Using a 3-km-long cable deployed on Mount Meager's ridge and glacier, we were able to detect an unexpectedly broad range of seismic signals, including up to 400 small earthquakes per day and volcanic tremor that may last for many hours. The most likely origin of these events is the movement of fluids within the geothermal reservoir, and their existence indicates that Mount Meager is substantially more active than previously thought.
This page was generated automatically upon download from the ETH Zurich Research Collection. For more information please consult the Terms of use. ETH LibraryPlain Language Summary Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is an emerging technology to measure microscopic ground motion by sending laser pulses through fiber-optic cables, which are commonly used for telecommunication. A cable of several kilometers length provides thousands of measurement points, which can yield highly detailed information about the propagation of seismic waves excited by earthquakes. The ease of deploying a fiber-optic cable, compared to the challenge of installing thousands of conventional seismometers, opens new opportunities for earthquake studies in remote and hazardous areas. Here, we present the first application of DAS in a volcano-glacial environment. Mount Meager, the site of the experiment in British Columbia, is an active volcano known for its geothermal potential and for hosting the largest landslide in recorded Canadian history. Using a 3-km-long cable deployed on Mount Meager's ridge and glacier, we were able to detect an unexpectedly broad range of seismic signals, including up to 400 small earthquakes per day and volcanic tremor that may last for many hours. The most likely origin of these events is the movement of fluids within the geothermal reservoir, and their existence indicates that Mount Meager is substantially more active than previously thought.
Distributed acoustic sensing offered researchers a means to measure ground deformation from atop ice-clad Gr�msv�tn volcano with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions.
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