Magnitude scale for LP events: a quantification scheme for volcanic quakes

The peculiar source characteristics of long-period seismic events (time persistency of the source, low-frequency peaks in the source spectrum, absence of high-frequency radiation) prevent the formation of a definite high-frequency coda in the seismograms. In contrast, this is well formed in volcano–tectonic quakes. For this reason, the widely used duration magnitude scale that is based on the proportionality between the energy and the coda duration cannot be used for long-period estimation. In observatory practice, the long-period magnitude is sometimes estimated using the same duration magnitude scale, leading to confusing results. In this report, we show a new method to estimate the magnitude of long-period events that generally occur for volcanoes, with some application examples from data for Mt Etna (Italy), Colima Volcano (Mexico) and Campi Flegrei (Italy).