Historical catalog of major explosions and paroxysms at Stromboli (Italy)

Abstract

This is the dataset of the major explosions and paroxysms record at Stromboli from 1879 to 1960, as reconstructed through a detailed review of scientific literature of the last ca. 140 years. The catalog includes the calendar date and phenomena descriptions for 120 explosive events, of which 32 were paroxysms.

We summarized the event information content in five columns – (i) noise and earthquakes, (ii) ash plume, (iii) large ejecta, (iv) PDC and tsunami, (v) lava flows. Where possible, the extracts contained the description of any volcanic activity at least one month before the eruption and one month after. The catalog also includes a sequence of extracts from the original literature sources that helped us in the complex characterization of the less recent events. In our analysis, we mostly relied on the detailed characterization of major explosions and paroxysms in Rosi et al. 2013 that provided quantitative constraints on total duration, fallout volume, mass discharge rate, ballistic size, ballistic range and column height of ordinary activity, major explosions, and paroxysms. In several cases, we had to carefully evaluate the original description of the phenomena, due to insufficient quantitative information in the scientific literature.

In particular, we considered the area affected by large ballistic projectiles as the discriminant factor to distinguish between ordinary activity, major explosions and paroxysms. This area is limited to the Crater Terrace in case of ordinary activity, to the summit area of the volcano and Sciara del Fuoco during major explosions, and can extend down to low elevations along large part of the island, and sometimes beyond the shoreline, during the paroxysms (Barberi et al., 1993). We also considered several other factors, including the height of the plume, the amount of ash and scoria fallout, the occurrence and strength of any associated shock wave. The occurrence of PDC and/or tsunami associated with the violent explosive activity was assumed as a marker for a paroxysm too(Rosi et al., 2013). The determination of the hour and minute of the explosion in the historical documents usually distinguishes the most violent phenomena.

Whilst identifying the paroxysms was relatively straightforward, several possible major explosions were not clearly distinguishable from particularly violent episodes of the ordinary Strombolian activity. Thus, our historical record includes the quantification of the main sources of uncertainty, i.e. the possibility of major explosions of uncertain characterization because of insufficient information. We thus categorized as uncertain 45 major explosions.