Monitoring Seismo-volcanic and Infrasonic Signals at Volcanoes: Mt. Etna Case Study

Abstract

Volcanoes generate a broad range of seismo-volcanic and infrasonic signals, whose features and variations are often closely related to volcanic activity. The study of these signals is hence very useful in the monitoring and investigation of volcano dynamics. The analysis of seismo-volcanic and infrasonic signals requires specifically developed techniques due to their unique characteristics, which are generally quite distinct compared with tectonic and volcano-tectonic earthquakes. In this work, we describe analysis methods used to detect and locate seismo-volcanic and infrasonic signals at Mt. Etna. Volcanic tremor sources are located using a method based on spatial seismic amplitude distribution, assuming propagation in a homogeneous medium. The tremor source is found by calculating the goodness of the linear regression fit (R2) of the log-linearized equation of the seismic amplitude decay with distance. The location method for long-period events is based on the joint computation of semblance and R2 values, and the location method of very long-period events is based on the application of radial semblance. Infrasonic events and tremor are located by semblance–brightness- and semblance-based methods, respectively. The techniques described here can also be applied to other volcanoes and do not require particular network geometries (such as arrays) but rather simple sparse networks. Using the source locations of all the considered signals, we were able to reconstruct the shallow plumbing system (above sea level) during 2011.