The Long-Period seismicity before and during the volcanic crises: examples from two case studies

Abstract

The Long-Period (LP) seismicity is common at active volcanoes and is usually modeled as due to pressurized magmatic fluids flowing through rock cavities. These signals are sensitive to the thermodynamic conditions of the magma-gas mixture in the shallow plumbing system and can thus be adopted as “detectors” of an impelling eruption. We found that at Stromboli (Italy) before and/or during recent volcanic crises the LP events can occur in swarms, which show different statistics, higher energy and shallower location than the stationary LP activity. We imputed the LP swarms to a quick depressurization (|ΔP|≥105 Pa) of the shallowest (<0.8 km) part of the conduit. At Shishaldin (Alaska) the 2004 eruption is anticipated by a migration towards the surface of the LP source, which moves from ~8 km to ≾5 km below the crater rim. By simple assumptions, we modeled this source change as produced by an increase of the confining pressure within the plumbing system of ~5x107 Pa, possibly induced by an upward migration of ~108-1010 kg of magma.