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Large-scale thermal unrest of volcanoes for years prior to eruption

Nature Geoscience volume 14, pages 238–241 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Identifying the observables that warn of volcanic eruptions is a major challenge in natural hazard management. A potentially important observable is the release of heat through volcano surfaces, which represents a major energy source at quiescent volcanoes. However, it remains unclear whether surface heat emissions respond to pre-eruptive processes and vary before eruption. Here we show through a statistical analysis of satellite-based long-wavelength (10.780–11.280 μm) infrared data that the last magmatic and phreatic eruptions of five different volcanoes were preceded by subtle but significant long-term (years), large-scale (tens of square kilometres) increases in their radiant heat flux (up to ~1 °C in median radiant temperature). Large-scale thermal unrest is detected even before eruptions that were not anticipated from other volcano monitoring methods, such as the 2014 phreatic eruption of Ontake (Japan) and the 2015 magmatic eruption of Calbuco (Chile). We attribute large-scale thermal unrest to the enhancement of underground hydrothermal activity, and suggest that such analysis of satellite-based infrared observations can improve constraints on the thermal budget of volcanoes, early detection of pre-eruptive conditions and assessments of volcanic alert levels.

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Fig. 1: Temporal variations of \(\overline {\updelta T}\) at the target volcanoes.
Fig. 2: Conceptual model of the large-scale (tens of square kilometres) thermal unrest detected at the target volcanoes.

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Data availability

Data (MODIS Terra/Aqua Calibrated Radiances 5-Min Level-1B Swath 1 km V006 and MODIS Terra/Aqua Geolocation Fields 5-Min Level-1A Swath 1 km V006) are available fully, openly and without restrictions at https://earthdata.nasa.gov/. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

Two MATLAB scripts for data processing and analysis are available (contact the corresponding author for further details).

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Acknowledgements

Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA, when T.G. was supported by the NASA Postdoctoral Program. We appreciate discussions on the matters of this paper with the Powell Volcano Remote Sensing Working Group; Observatorio Volcanológico de Los Andes del Sur (OVDAS) - Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería (Sernageomin); and Servicio Geológico Minero (SEGEMAR) and Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE).

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  1. Társilo Girona

    Present address: Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Társilo Girona, Vincent Realmuto & Paul Lundgren

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  1. Társilo Girona
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  2. Vincent Realmuto
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Contributions

T.G. conceived the idea and led the data analysis and writing of the manuscript. V.R. and P.L. collaborated in writing the manuscript and designing figures. T.G., V.R. and P.L. discussed the algorithm, interpretation, results and conclusions.

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Correspondence to Társilo Girona.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Geoscience thanks Michael Ramsey and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary handling editors: Stefan Lachowycz; Melissa Plail.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–9 and Tables 1 and 2.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Data used to generate graphs in Fig. 1a–e.

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Girona, T., Realmuto, V. & Lundgren, P. Large-scale thermal unrest of volcanoes for years prior to eruption. Nat. Geosci. 14, 238–241 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00705-4

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