Seismic characterisation of lahars at Volcán de Colima, Mexico

Vázquez, Rosario; Suriñach, Emma; Capra, Lucía; Arámbula‐Mendoza, Raúl; Reyes‐Dávila, Gabriel

doi:10.1007/s00445-016-1004-9

Cited by 28 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Ground impact of rockfalls (Deparis et al, 2008), particle hopping during bedload transport in rivers (Burtin et al, 2008;Tsai et al, 2012;Gimbert et al, 2014) and snow avalanche or landslide interaction with obstacles (Suriñach et al, 2000;Dammeier et al, 2011) all transmit high-frequency (> 1 Hz) seismic energy to the ground. Consequently, with the advent of more portable sensor and recorder technology, seismology has become increasingly popular in natural hazard and in particular debris-flow research (Galgaro et al, 2005;LaHusen et al, 2005;Huang et al, 2007;Cole et al, 2009;Zobin et al, 2009;Abancó et al, 2012;Vázquez et al, 2016). Unlike landslides, avalanches and rockfalls, debris flows typically move at relatively slow velocities below 10 m s −1 (e.g., Hürlimann et al, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing seismic amplitude source location for fast debris-flow detection at Illgraben, Switzerland

Walter

Burtin

McArdell

et al. 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Heavy precipitation can mobilize tens to hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of sediment in steep Alpine torrents in a short time. The resulting debris flows (mixtures of water, sediment and boulders) move downstream with velocities of several meters per second and have a high destruction potential. Warning protocols for affected communities rely on raising awareness about the debris-flow threat, precipitation monitoring and rapid detection methods. The latter, in particular, is a challenge because debris-flow-prone torrents have their catchments in steep and inaccessible terrain, where instrumentation is difficult to install and maintain. Here we test amplitude source location (ASL) as a processing scheme for seismic network data for early warning purposes. We use debris-flow and noise seismograms from the Illgraben catchment, Switzerland, a torrent system which produces several debris-flow events per year. Automatic in situ detection is currently based on geophones mounted on concrete check dams and radar stage sensors suspended above the channel. The ASL approach has the advantage that it uses seismometers, which can be installed at more accessible locations where a stable connection to mobile phone networks is available for data communication. Our ASL processing uses time-averaged ground vibration amplitudes to estimate the location of the debris-flow front. Applied to continuous data streams, inversion of the seismic amplitude decay throughout the network is robust and efficient, requires no manual identification of seismic phase arrivals and eliminates the need for a local seismic velocity model. We apply the ASL technique to a small debris-flow event on 19 July 2011, which was captured with a temporary seismic monitoring network.The processing rapidly detects the debris-flow event half an hour before arrival at the outlet of the torrent and several minutes before detection by the in situ alarm system. An analysis of continuous seismic records furthermore indicates that detectability of Illgraben debris flows of this size is unaffected by changing environmental and anthropogenic seismic noise and that false detections can be greatly reduced with simple processing steps.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing seismic amplitude source location for fast debris-flow detection at Illgraben, Switzerland

Walter

Burtin

McArdell

et al. 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…2d), in order to easily identify the sites during the field campaigns, and to use them as control marks for comparing the topographic profiles between each campaign. A HOBO RG3 water station, with a rain gauge sensor of 0.2 mm resolution, and sampling in 1 min intervals Vázquez et al, 2016), is installed at the monitoring site ( Fig. 1-Ic, and II) in order to monitor the rainfall events at Montegrande ravine lo- cally.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We analyze and classify a total of 15 flows which occurred during the 2013-2015 seasons (Table 1), following the methodology described in Vázquez et al (2016), which is based on monitoring data that are gathered at Montegrande monitoring site and that identify them as single-pulse events (SPEs), and multi-pulse events (MPEs). The SPEs are characterized by a flow that lasts 1-1.5 h and develops a single front enriched in blocks (FEBs), followed by diluted surges (DSs), whereas the MPEs present more than one FEB interspersed by a sustained flow that shows changes in flow discharges (DSs) and lasts up to 3 h, ending with a prolonged streamflow .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The systematic surveying of the topographic profiles over the checkpoints in Montegrande started in 2013 after the 11 June 2013 lahar, described and classified by Vázquez et al (2016) as an MPE (Table 1). It was the first lahar of the 2013 season, and has been one of the biggest events recorded in the ravine since 2011.…”

Section: Morphology Of Montegrande Ravine Before and After The 11 Junmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The real-time monitoring of these phenomena has been conducted by means of a monitoring station located at 2000 m a.s.l. (for a detailed description of the equipment see Vázquez et al, 2014Vázquez et al, , 2016, along with topographic profiles and field data obtained during the 2013-2014 seasons. From these data, it was possible to analyze and describe the annual sediment budget at selected sites, as well as the factors that mostly control the (E/D) processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Factors controlling erosion/deposition phenomena related to lahars at Volcán de Colima, Mexico

Vázquez

Capra

Coviello

2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. One of the most common phenomena at Volcán de Colima is the annual development of lahars that runs mainly through the southern ravines of the edifice. Since 2011 the study and the monitoring of these flows and of the associated rainfall has been achieved by means of an instrumented station located along the Montegrande ravine, together with the systematic surveying of cross-topographic profiles of the main channel. From these, we present the comparison of the morphological changes experimented by this ravine during the 2013, 2014 and 2015 rainy seasons. The erosion/deposition effects of 11 lahars that occurred during this period of time were quantified by means of the topographic profiles taken at the beginning and at the end of the rainy seasons and before and after the major lahar event of 11 June 2013. We identified (i) an erosive zone between 2100 and 1950 m a.s.l., 8 • in slope, with an annual erosional rate of 10.3 % mainly due to the narrowness of the channel and to its high slope angle and (ii) an erosive-depositional zone, between 1900 and 1700 m a.s.l., (∼ 8 % erosion and ∼ 16 % deposition), characterized by a wider channel that decreases in slope angle (4 • ). Based on these observations, the major factors controlling the erosion/deposition rates in the Montegrande ravine are the morphology of the gully (i.e., channel bed slope and the cross section width) and the joint effect of sediment availability and accumulated rainfall. On the distal reach of the ravine, the erosion/deposition processes tend to be promoted preferentially one over the other, mostly depending on the width of the active channel. Only for extraordinary rainfall events are the largest lahars mostly erosive all along the ravine up to the distal fan where the deposition takes place. In addition, as well as the morphological characteristics of the ravine, the flow depth is a critical factor in controlling erosion, as deeper flows will promote erosion against deposition. Finally, by comparing rainfalls associated with lahars that originated after the last main eruptive episode that occurred in 2004-2005, we observed that higher accumulated rainfall was needed to trigger lahars in the 2013 and 2014 seasons, which points to a progressive stabilization of the volcano slope during a post-eruptive period. These results can be used as a tool to foresee the channel response to future volcanic activity, to improve the input parameters for lahar modeling and to better constrain the hazard zonation at Volcán de Colima.

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Seismic characterization of hyperconcentrated flows in a volcanic environment

Coviello

Capra

Vázquez

et al. 2018

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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We present direct observations and monitoring data of a hyperconcentrated flow that occurred along La Lumbre ravine, one of the most active channels of Volcán de Colima in Mexico. Flow properties were inferred from video images and seismic data recorded by a geophone installed outside the channel. We collected flow samples 400 m upstream from the monitoring station and analyzed the variation of sediment concentration and grain-size distribution over time. A joint analysis of hydrological (i.e. flow velocity, wetted perimeter) and rheological (i.e. yield stress τ y and dynamic viscosity μ m ) parameters was performed to characterize the flow. Different flow regimes and sediment transport processes were identified and analyzed in comparison with both the amplitude and spectral features of the seismic signal. We observed differing sediment concentrations at the same discharge, suggesting a decoupling between sediment transport processes and discharge for low-magnitude flows. A straightforward correlation was found between the amplitude of the seismic signal and the sediment concentration, and a value of 1.8 × 10 À3 mm/s was identified that can be used as a threshold to recognize the hyperconcentrated phase of the flow. This information was tested on the complete seismic dataset gathered at La Lumbre ravine during the 2015 rainy season. We identified the transition from streamflow to hyperconcentrated flow (and/or vice versa) in 16 low-magnitude events and we validated this result using the video recordings. The correlation between seismic amplitude and sediment concentration is valid at La Lumbre ravine but would need to be tested in other locations for the development of automatic flow classification methods. This work contributes to standardized seismic methods for characterizing flow processes in volcanic environments, also for the development of lahar early warning systems. Copyright

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Seismic characterisation of lahars at Volcán de Colima, Mexico

Cited by 28 publications

References 32 publications

Testing seismic amplitude source location for fast debris-flow detection at Illgraben, Switzerland

Testing seismic amplitude source location for fast debris-flow detection at Illgraben, Switzerland

Factors controlling erosion/deposition phenomena related to lahars at Volcán de Colima, Mexico

Seismic characterization of hyperconcentrated flows in a volcanic environment

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