In 2014, a phreatic eruption occurred at the Ontake Volcano in Central Japan causing multiple deaths and missing persons. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar data showed local-scale subsidence around the newly created eruptive vents after the eruption. Source modeling resulted in a nearly spherical deflation source emplaced at a depth of 500 m below the vents reflecting post-eruptive depressurization in a shallow hydrothermal reservoir. The cumulative deflation volume reached 7 × 10 5 m 3 3 years after the eruption. Comparison between our source model and GNSS data indicates that this shallow reservoir could have formed by 2007 and remained stable until the 2014 eruption. The absence of significant syn-eruptive subsidence indicates that the shallow reservoir was not the main water source driving the phreatic eruption. Under simple assumptions, mass balance between the shallow reservoir and the discharge plume from the vents indicates most of the water contained in the plume comes from greater depth than the shallow reservoir. To constrain the post-eruptive process, it is necessary to track not only deformation but also plume discharge for 3 years after the eruption.
We present detailed maps of local-scale 3D deformation preceding the 2018 phreatic eruption at Iwo-yama volcano (south of Kyushu Island, Japan), using a combination of airborne and spaceborne Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data. The 3D and 2.5D deformation maps obtained at different periods allow us to successfully track their spatiotemporal evolution and to infer the transition of subsurface conditions responsible for the precursory deformation observed from 2014 to 2018. From 2014 to 2016, ground inflation depicted an axisymmetric pattern with the maximum displacement at the center of the deformed area. However, from 2016 to 2018, an inflation peak moved to the southern edge of the area deformed during 2014–2016 and became more localized, which was close to the newly generated vents in the 2018 eruption. Modeling of the inflations suggests that pressurization within a crack at a depth of 150 m beneath the Iwo-yama geothermal area caused the 2014–2016 deformation and had continued until the 2018 eruption. Modeling results highlight the persistence of the local ground inflation pattern just above the southern edge of the crack, which suggests the presence of a shallower inflation source contributing to the local inflation. Consequently, we interpret the sequence of these deformations as follows: from 2014, deeper-rooted fluid started to inject into a fluid-saturated crack at 150-m depth, which caused the 2014–2016 deformation. Then, after 2016, the crack inflation continued because of the continuous fluid injection and formed another pressurized part directly above the southern tip of the crack. Additionally, the results of the time-series analysis of the satellite InSAR data revealed that the local inflation started around April 2017 for which thermal activity including a mud emission became pronounced around the location of the local inflation. As a result of an episodic increase in supply rate of magmatic fluids from a deep magma reservoir from early 2018, a phreatic eruption finally occurred in the vicinity of the most deformed point, providing a clue for predicting future eruption sites, as was also observed in the Hakone 2015 eruption.
The phreatic eruption of Mount Ontake in 2014 caused local-scale subsidence and a mass discharge of water-vapor plumes from vents. A previous study of InSAR data analysis modeled the local subsidence as a deflation of a shallow hydrothermal reservoir (~ 500 m beneath the vents), and speculated that it was associated with plume emission continuing just after the eruption. In addition, combination of the InSAR and GNSS data implies that another, deeper deflation source (~ 3-6 km beneath the vents) contributes to the baseline contraction of the GNSS data. In this study, we estimated daily mass flux of the emitting plumes using photographed images, and compared the temporal behavior of the discharged mass with that of deflation of the two sources in order to clarify their association. The temporal profiles of the shallow deflation volume and the discharge mass both show evidence of decay, but with different characteristics; the deflation volume progress was approximated by a single exponential decay with a long relaxation time (379-641 days), whereas the discharge mass displayed a sum of a linear trend and an exponential decay with shorter relaxation time (47 days). This discrepancy, along with GNSS data, suggests the contribution of a deep deflation source with a short relaxation time (20-40 days). Estimation of mass balance between the emitting plume and fluids discharged from both shallow and deep sources revealed that more than 70% of the discharged mass came from the deep source. Based on the estimated mass balance, phase state of the shallow reservoir was estimated as a single-phase, liquid-rich reservoir. The fast decay of the deep deflation may reflect rapid depressurization due to violent fluid discharge at the onset of the eruption. In contrast, the slow decay of the shallow deflation suggests that it had a minor role in the eruption. However, such a wet reservoir has the potential to induce volcanic hazard such as snow-melting lahar for future eruptions, requiring monitoring the volcano, which will probably shift to pre-eruptive re-pressurized phase, until the future eruption.
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