‘Singing’ lava lakes could help predict when volcanoes will blow | Science
In 2007, lava began to pool inside one of the craters atop Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, a gentle eruption that would culminate more than a decade later in a spectacular display of spewed ash and massive lava flows. Until that final outburst, the lava lake was a tourist spectacle, a calm surface that hid the churn of magma deeper within the volcano. Now, researchers have found a new way to identify key signs of Kilauea’s eruptive potential—by listening to vibrations from these lava lakes. Eventually, they hope to use these lava “songs” to forecast when a volcano will start and stop erupting.
“It’s great that they found this other method to understand what’s happening at Kilauea,” says Philippe Jousset, a geophysicist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences who was not involved in the study. “[This] may help us understand … the most dramatic changes in the behavior of the volcano.”
When chunks of rock from the volcano’s crater rim fall into the lake, the sloshing lava generates distinct seismic waves that last tens of seconds. For years, researchers suspected these long seismic signals might contain information about the magma below—the same way the noise you get from tapping a spoon on a glass of water can reveal how much liquid is present. The pitch and duration of that sound would further change if you dissolve gases into the water, or replace the water with milk. Similarly, scientists thought, the resonant waves from the lava lake might encode details about its store of magma.
After Kilauea’s 10-year eruption ceased, scientists had “this amazing record” to work with, says Leif Karlstrom, a volcanologist at the University of Oregon and senior author on the study. He and his then–Ph.D. student Josh Crozier gathered data on thousands of events from seismic sensors, GPS stations, and observations of the lake level. Then, they built a computer model that showed what happened when falling rocks disrupted the lava lake and produced the signals. By adjusting different variables in the simulation, such as temperature and gas bubble content, they could figure out which combination of magma properties best matched the real data.
The model revealed the temperature of the magma was linked strongly to the duration of the seismic signals, they report today in Science Advances. The signals also gave clues to the quantity and composition of the bubbles embedded in the magma—information that’s typically only available after an eruption takes place, Karlstrom says. Gas content is an important variable to track, he adds, because eruptions are driven by “bubbles in the magma that want to get out.” The changes in the lava song reflected individual blasts throughout Kilauea’s lengthy episode, including the big one in 2018. The hope is that one day, these volcanic tunes will help scientists monitor magma and forecast eruptions—although accurate predictions will require models with more detailed physics. His team is working to assemble different types of data and incorporate machine-learning algorithms to improve the recognition of eruptive events.
Although Kilauea provides an excellent laboratory for eruption prediction, not all volcanoes have lava lakes that produce such long, clear seismic signals, Jousset says. Still, the new work, with its many years of observations, opens “a new perspective” on the evolution of volcanic eruptions, Karlstrom says.
In 2007, lava began to pool inside one of the craters atop Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, a gentle eruption that would culminate more than a decade later in a spectacular display of spewed ash and massive lava flows. Until that final outburst, the lava lake was a tourist spectacle, a calm surface that hid the churn of magma deeper within the volcano. Now, researchers have found a new way to identify key signs of Kilauea’s eruptive potential—by listening to vibrations from these lava lakes. Eventually, they hope to use these lava “songs” to forecast when a volcano will start and stop erupting.
“It’s great that they found this other method to understand what’s happening at Kilauea,” says Philippe Jousset, a geophysicist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences who was not involved in the study. “[This] may help us understand … the most dramatic changes in the behavior of the volcano.”
When chunks of rock from the volcano’s crater rim fall into the lake, the sloshing lava generates distinct seismic waves that last tens of seconds. For years, researchers suspected these long seismic signals might contain information about the magma below—the same way the noise you get from tapping a spoon on a glass of water can reveal how much liquid is present. The pitch and duration of that sound would further change if you dissolve gases into the water, or replace the water with milk. Similarly, scientists thought, the resonant waves from the lava lake might encode details about its store of magma.
After Kilauea’s 10-year eruption ceased, scientists had “this amazing record” to work with, says Leif Karlstrom, a volcanologist at the University of Oregon and senior author on the study. He and his then–Ph.D. student Josh Crozier gathered data on thousands of events from seismic sensors, GPS stations, and observations of the lake level. Then, they built a computer model that showed what happened when falling rocks disrupted the lava lake and produced the signals. By adjusting different variables in the simulation, such as temperature and gas bubble content, they could figure out which combination of magma properties best matched the real data.
The model revealed the temperature of the magma was linked strongly to the duration of the seismic signals, they report today in Science Advances. The signals also gave clues to the quantity and composition of the bubbles embedded in the magma—information that’s typically only available after an eruption takes place, Karlstrom says. Gas content is an important variable to track, he adds, because eruptions are driven by “bubbles in the magma that want to get out.” The changes in the lava song reflected individual blasts throughout Kilauea’s lengthy episode, including the big one in 2018. The hope is that one day, these volcanic tunes will help scientists monitor magma and forecast eruptions—although accurate predictions will require models with more detailed physics. His team is working to assemble different types of data and incorporate machine-learning algorithms to improve the recognition of eruptive events.
Although Kilauea provides an excellent laboratory for eruption prediction, not all volcanoes have lava lakes that produce such long, clear seismic signals, Jousset says. Still, the new work, with its many years of observations, opens “a new perspective” on the evolution of volcanic eruptions, Karlstrom says.
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