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A satellite geodetic survey of large-scale deformation of volcanic centres in the central Andes

Nature volume 418, pages 167–171 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Surface deformation in volcanic areas usually indicates movement of magma or hydrothermal fluids at depth. Stratovolcanoes tend to exhibit a complex relationship between deformation and eruptive behaviour1. The characteristically long time spans between such eruptions requires a long time series of observations to determine whether deformation without an eruption is common at a given edifice. Such studies, however, are logistically difficult to carry out in most volcanic arcs, as these tend to be remote regions with large numbers of volcanoes (hundreds to even thousands). Here we present a satellite-based interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) survey of the remote central Andes volcanic arc, a region formed by subduction of the Nazca oceanic plate beneath continental South America. Spanning the years 1992 to 2000, our survey reveals the background level of activity of about 900 volcanoes, 50 of which have been classified as potentially active2,3. We find four centres of broad (tens of kilometres wide), roughly axisymmetric surface deformation. None of these centres are at volcanoes currently classified as potentially active, although two lie within about 10 km of volcanoes with known activity. Source depths inferred from the patterns of deformation lie between 5 and 17 km. In contrast to the four new sources found, we do not observe any deformation associated with recent eruptions of Lascar, Chile4,5.

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Figure 1: Shaded relief topographic map of the central Andes.
Figure 2: South to north (light grey) and west to east (dark grey) profiles through the interferometric observations (points, same data as shown in Fig.
Figure 3: Inferred rate of volume change as a function of time, assuming a constant source depth at each location, a spherically symmetric source in a half-space, and a constant rate of deformation during the time period covered in each interferogram.
Figure 4: Interferograms showing no deformation at Lascar from two satellite tracks of radar data.

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Acknowledgements

European Space Agency (ESA) remote-sensing satellite (ERS) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery for this study was acquired as a Category 1 research project from the ESA. We thank A. Linde for a critical review, L. Rivera and R. Lohman for modelling software, S. de Silva for an electronic version of his volcano database, and H. Zebker, Y. Fialko, P. Segall, E. Brodsky and M. Battaglia for useful discussions. This material is based upon work partially supported by the National Science Foundation under a grant to M.S. M.E.P. was partly supported by NASA and NSF fellowships.

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  1. Seismological Laboratory, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, 91125, USA

    Matthew E. Pritchard & Mark Simons

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Correspondence to Matthew E. Pritchard.

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Pritchard, M., Simons, M. A satellite geodetic survey of large-scale deformation of volcanic centres in the central Andes. Nature 418, 167–171 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature00872

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