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Deep and shallow long-period volcanic seismicity linked by fluid-pressure transfer

Nature Geoscience volume 10, pages 442–445 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Volcanic long-period earthquakes are attributed to pressure fluctuations that result from unsteady mass transport in the plumbing system of volcanoes. Whereas most of the long-period seismicity is located close to the surface, the volcanic deep long-period earthquakes that occur in the lower crust and uppermost mantle reflect the activity in the deep parts of magmatic systems. Here, we present observations of long-period earthquakes that occurred in 2011–2012 within the Klyuchevskoy volcano group in Kamchatka, Russia. We show two distinct groups of long-period sources: events that occurred just below the active volcanoes, and deep long-period events at depths of ∼30 km in the vicinity of a deep magmatic reservoir. We report systematic increases of the long-period seismicity levels prior to volcanic eruptions with the initial activation of the deep long-period sources that reflects pressurization of the deep reservoir and consequent transfer of the activity towards the surface. The relatively fast migration of the long-period activity suggests that a hydraulic connection is maintained between deep and shallow magmatic reservoirs. The reported observations provide evidence for the pre-eruptive reload of the shallow magmatic reservoirs from depth, and suggest that the deep long-period earthquakes could be used as a reliable early precursor of eruptions.

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Figure 1: Map of the Klyuchevskoy volcano group.
Figure 2: Detection of repeating long-period events.
Figure 3: Activity of the repeating long-period events.

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Acknowledgements

We thank members of the Kamchatka Branch of the Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences who contributed to the operation of the seismic network and to collecting and archiving the data, and C. Jaupart, E. Kaminski, W. Frank and M. Campillo for helpful discussions. This study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant 14-47-00002), by the French projects ‘Labex UnivEarth’ and Universiteé Sorbonne Paris Cité project ‘VolcanoDynamics’ and by the Russian Academy of Science (research contract AAAA-A16-116070550058-4). Computations were performed using the infrastructure of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology and of the Kamchatka Branch of the Geophysical Survey, as well of the IPGP High-Performance Computing infrastructure S-CAPADE (supported by the Île-de-France region via the SEASAME programme, by France-Grille, and by the CNRS MASTODONS programme).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, CNRS (UMR7154), 1 rue Jussieu, 75238 Paris, cedex 5, France

    N. M. Shapiro

  2. Institute of Volcanology and Seismology FEB RAS, 9 Piip Boulevard, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatsky Region 683006, Russia

    N. M. Shapiro, A. A. Gusev & E. I. Gordeev

  3. Kamchatka Branch of the Geophysical Survey, Russian Academy of Sciences, 9 Piip Boulevard, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatsky Region 683006, Russia

    D. V. Droznin, S. Ya. Droznina, S. L. Senyukov, A. A. Gusev & E. I. Gordeev

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  1. N. M. Shapiro
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Contributions

N.M.S. and D.V.D. analysed the continuous seismograms and the repeater catalogues. S.Y.D. and S.L.S. carried out the template source location. All of the authors contributed to interpretation of the data, discussions of the results and preparation of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to N. M. Shapiro.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Shapiro, N., Droznin, D., Droznina, S. et al. Deep and shallow long-period volcanic seismicity linked by fluid-pressure transfer. Nature Geosci 10, 442–445 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2952

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