39 Years of Geochemical Monitoring of Laguna Caliente Crater Lake, Poás: Patterns from the Past as Keys for the Future

Abstract

Since 1978 water chemistry of the Laguna Caliente crater lake has been used to monitor volcanic activity at Poás, Costa Rica, making it arguably the best studied hyper-acidic crater lake on Earth. During these 39 years, three of water of Laguna Caliente, independent on previous deterministic research and resulting conceptual models. Common patterns of chemical parameters in relation with phreatic eruptive activity for the period 1978–Septem- ber 2014 are sought, applying the objective statistical method of Pattern Recognition. This resulted in the definition of the strongest precursory signals and their respective thresh- olds. Numerical outcomes often confirm find- ings based on geochemical models (e.g. SO4, SO4/Cl and pH are strong monitoring param- eters). However, some surprising parameters (opposite behavior of Mg/Cl ratios, decreases in Ca and Mg concentrations, increasing Al/Mg ratios) still need a geochemical expla- nation and should be a focus for future research strategies. The obtained parameters and thresholds were retrospectively applied for the “test period” of the Pattern Recognition method (November 2014–February 2016). This test provided hints that suggested that eruptive activity at Poás was not yet over, despite apparent quiescence in early 2016. Indeed, after new phreatic eruptions since May 2016, the 2006–2016 phreatic eruptive cycle culminated in phreatomagmatic activity in April 2017. We conclude that evaluating time series of chemical composition of crater lakes framed in the Pattern Recognition method can be a useful monitoring approach. Moreover, increased sampling frequency can provide more details and more adequate phases of unrest occurred, manifested through frequent phreatic eruptions, with each a dura- tion of several years to over a decade (1978– 1980, 1986–1996, 2006–2016). We here present a novel technique to deal with the long time series of the chemical composition