Magma dynamics of 2007 Stromboli effusive eruption as revealed by high precision location of seismic events.

Abstract

Stromboli is considered one of the most active volcanoes in the world, and its persistent but moderate explosive activity is only interrupted by occasional episodes of more vigorous activity accompanied by lava flows. A new effusive eruption began in late February, 2007 and was characterised by intense seismic activity throughout the whole period. The accurate seismic signals analysis showed the presence of families of events with similar waveform signatures (i.e. multiplets) located beneath the crater region. Since traditional location techniques do not allow obtaining reliable hypocentres, our analysis focused on high precision locations of the seismicity, in order to better define the source geometry of the events. Hypocentres, therefore, have been relocated considering two steps: the first, based on a robust probabilistic approach, is used to find the absolute position of the clusters; the second exploits a master-event concept for the relative location of the events. Finally, the shape of the clusters and the temporal migration of the foci were correlated with the eruptive phases. The results show that the occurrence of a cluster of events is related to the opening and closure of a vent opened in the Sciara del Fuoco slope and, in particular, to the intrusion of a dike injected by central conduit in a radial direction, whereas another cluster lies in a narrow vertical volume positioned under the crater area. The geometry of the clusters suggests a source region depicting the shallower feeding system. Overall, the results highlight that the high precision locations method is an efficient and quick tool to obtain a better understanding of the magmatic processes occurring during an ongoing eruption.