Developed a new method to predict the location of future eruptive vents of volcanoes. The results of the multidisciplinary research, in which INGV participated, have been published in the international journal Science Advances
Providing a physical model to identify the position of future eruptive vents in order to determine the paths of lava flows and the distribution of ash clouds: this is the objective of the study "Stress inversions to forecast magma pathways and eruptive vent location", published on Science Advances and conducted by the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) in Potsdam, the University of Roma Tre and the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).
"In the common imagination, during an eruption, magma comes out of the top of the volcano", explains Mauro Di Vito, researcher of the "Vesuvian Observatory" Section of the INGV (INGV-OV). “Actually, it is not uncommon for the eruption to occur along the sides of the volcanic edifice. Indeed, after leaving the magma chamber, the rising magma can make its way laterally, fracturing the rocks, sometimes for several kilometres. Reaching the surface, in these cases, the magma forms one or more eruptive vents, also giving rise to explosive eruptions".
Pinpointing where the magma is heading and where it will break the surface is a major challenge for volcanologists. The sides of the volcanoes are dotted with dozens of vents, often active during a single eruption, whose alignments highlight the routes where the magma from the subsoil reached the surface.
“All volcanoes can produce this type of eruptive vent, called monogenic, but some do it more than others”, continues the INGV expert. “The model proposed in this study combines the physics of volcanoes, which allows us to understand how magma fractures rocks to move underground, statistical procedures and knowledge of the structure and history of the volcano in question. Through statistics, the parameters of the physical model are refined until the model reproduces past eruptive processes".
The new approach was applied to the Campi Flegrei caldera, near the city of Naples. Calderas are volcanoes characterized by the collapse of the roof of the magma chamber following a major eruption: therefore, they do not have a top part in which the eruptions are concentrated, generating greater uncertainty in defining the location of future eruptive vents. In this case, the researchers verified the functioning of the model also in retrospective tests, i.e. verifying whether the model was able to identify the position of vents of past eruptions, not used for its development.
“The hardest part was making a method that works for all volcanoes. The next step will be to apply the method to specific volcanoes to build hazard maps that help us identify the position of future eruption vents with higher reliability than hitherto possible. In fact, if the approach works, it could be decisive in land use planning in volcanic areas”, concludes the researcher.
Photo 1 – The cone and crater of Monte Nuovo, the youngest of the active eruptive vents in the Campi Flegrei caldera. The eruption occurred in September 1538 and was one of the smallest in the caldera.
Photo 2 – View of the Solfatara crater, an active volcano about 4000 years ago and site of intense hydrothermal activities.
Photo 3 – Aerial view of the caldera from the South-West. The caldera bottom is marked by numerous eruptive vents highlighted by the craters of recent eruptions.
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