Editor's Summary

20 November 2008

Volcano respirations captured

Dome growth and explosive degassing are fundamental processes in the cycle of continental arc volcanism. Johnson et al. present novel optical geodetic observations to constrain the sources responsible for long-period volcanic earthquakes, which are coincident with frequent explosive eruptions at Santiaguito volcano, Guatemala. They find that acceleration in deformation of the volcanic dome, extracted from high-resolution optical image processing, is coincident with recorded long-period seismic sources. Based on these observations, abrupt mass shift of solidified domes, conduit magma or magma pads seem to be part of the mechanism responsible for generating long-period earthquakes at silicic volcanic systems.

Letter: Long-period earthquakes and co-eruptive dome inflation seen with particle image velocimetry

Jeffrey B. Johnson, Jonathan M. Lees, Alexander Gerst, Dork Sahagian & Nick Varley

doi:10.1038/nature07429

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