Real Time Tracking of Magmatic Intrusions by means of Ground Deformation Modeling during Volcanic Crises

Abstract

Volcano observatories provide near real-time information and, ultimately, forecasts about volcano activity. For this reason, multiple physical and chemical parameters are continuously monitored. Here, we present a new method to efficiently estimate the location and evolution of magmatic sources based on a stream of real-time surface deformation data, such as High-Rate GPS, and a free-geometry magmatic source model. The tool allows tracking inflation and deflation sources in time, providing estimates of where a volcano might erupt, which is important in understanding an on-going crisis. We show a successful simulated application to the pre-eruptive period of May 2008, at Mount Etna (Italy). The proposed methodology is able to track the fast dynamics of the magma migration by inverting the real-time data within seconds. This general method is suitable for integration in any volcano observatory. The method provides first order unsupervised and realistic estimates of the locations of magmatic sources and of potential eruption sites, information that is especially important for civil protection purposes.

Coupled Short- and Medium-Term Geophysical Signals at Etna Volcano: Using Deformation and Strain to Infer Magmatic Processes From 2009 to 2017

“…In particular, the high-rate GPS data were collected from the network dual-frequency GPS receivers and processed through Geodetics R RTD software package by epoch-by-epoch algorithm (Bock et al, 2001;Nikolaidis et al, 2001) to obtain a solution of position every second for all the measured points. Then, the solutions were post-processed to improve their reliability, eliminating the outliers by using an interquartile range (IQR) filter and filtered for the multipath noise (due to multi-path ground reflections of GPS signal) following the technique by Nikolaidis et al (2001) and implemented in Cannavò et al (2015). The remaining solutions were used to estimate the baseline variation between pair stations in a time window of 3 min, as this is the minimum interval to obtain a satisfactory signal-to-noise ratio in the baseline time series.…”

A two‐step model for dynamical dike propagation in two dimensions: Application to the July 2001 Etna eruption

“…This is due to the deviatoric stress field induced by the load within the underlying crust. This effect provides a reliable explanation for the dike deflection observed at Etna, Italy, in July 2001 [ Bonaccorso et al , ] and also during the late stage of the May 2008 flank eruption [ Cannavò et al , ]. The deviatoric stress field induced beneath an edifice load may also explain the radial pattern of lateral dikes in the central part of a volcanic edifice [ Roman and Jaupart , ].…”

Modeling 3D Free-geometry Volumetric Sources Associated to Geological and Anthropogenic Hazards from Space and Terrestrial Geodetic Data

“…Such magmatism is often associated with ground deformation and gravity change, making geodesy a basic tool for the monitoring of volcanic hazards [2,4]. Volcano geodetic observations also provide valuable data for exploring the geometry and volume of magma plumbing systems, which offer a critical context for interpreting the mechanisms and characteristics of unrest and eruption [16,17].…”

“…In a volcanic context, surface displacements are inverted to infer valuable constraints on the active magmatic sources [2,17,29,30]. Surface deformation is a direct consequence of the dynamics of volcanic plumbing systems, and reflect the shape of magma intrusions, the volume of intruding/arising magma, and the emplacement mechanisms.…”

“…Analytical models are used to estimate the amplitude and pattern of surface deformation based on assumptions about the media and perturbation source (e.g., using elastic or poroelastic theory) [17,50,51]. They provide a relatively simple method to model surface deformation for reservoirs of any geometric shape.…”