SUMMARY The purpose of this work is to gain insights into the 2011–2012 eruption of El Hierro (Canary Islands) by mapping the evolution of the seismic b‐value. The El Hierro seismic sequence offers a rather unique opportunity to investigate the process of reawakening of an oceanic intraplate volcano after a long period of repose. The 2011–2012 eruption is a submarine volcanic event that took place about 2 km off of the southern coast of El Hierro. The eruption was accompanied by an intense seismic swarm and surface manifestations of activity. The earthquake catalogue during the period of unrest includes over 12 000 events, the largest with magnitude 4.6. The seismic sequence can be grouped into three distinct phases, which correspond to well‐separated spatial clusters and distinct earthquake regimes. The estimated b‐value is of 1.18 ± 0.03, and a magnitude of completeness of 1.3, for the entire catalogue. B is very close to 1.0, which indicates completeness of the earthquake catalogue with only minor departures from the linearity of Gutenberg–Richter frequency–magnitude distribution. The most straightforward interpretation of this result is that the seismic swarm reached its final stages, and no additional large magnitude events should be anticipated, similarly to what one would expect for non‐volcanic earthquake sequences. The results, dividing the activity in different phases, illustrate remarkable differences in the estimate of b‐value during the early and late stages of the eruption. The early pre‐eruptive activity was characterized by a b‐value of 2.25. In contrast, the b‐value was 1.25 during the eruptive phase. Based on our analyses, and the results of other studies, we propose a scenario that may account for the observations reported in this work. We infer that the earthquakes that occurred in the first phase reflect magma migration from the upper mantle to crustal depths. The area where magma initially intruded into the crust, because of its transitional nature is characterized by high fracturing, thus favours anomalously high b‐values. The larger magnitude earthquakes recorded in the second phase may reflect relaxation around the magma reservoir that had fed the eruption and, thus, lower b‐values.

No abstract

Volcanic ash is a well-known hazard to population, infrastructure, and commercial and civil aviation. Early assessment of the parameters that control the development and evolution of volcanic plumes is crucial to effective risk mitigation. Acoustic infrasound is a ground-based remote sensing technique—increasingly popular in the past two decades—that allows rapid estimates of eruption source parameters, including fluid flow velocities and volume flow rates of erupted material. The rate at which material is ejected from volcanic vents during eruptions, is one of the main inputs into models of atmospheric ash transport used to dispatch aviation warnings during eruptive crises. During explosive activity at volcanoes, the injection of hot gas-laden pyroclasts into the atmosphere generates acoustic waves that are recorded at local, regional and global scale. Within the framework of linear acoustic theory, infrasound sources can be modelled as multipole series, and acoustic pressure waveforms can be inverted to obtain the time history of volume flow at the vent. Here, we review near-field (<10 km from the vent) linear acoustic wave theory and its applications to the assessment of eruption source parameters. We evaluate recent advances in volcano infrasound modelling and inversion, and comment on the advantages and current limitations of these methods. We review published case studies from different volcanoes and show applications to new data that provide a benchmark for future acoustic infrasound studies.

The seismic and volcanological structure of Deception Island (Antarctica) is an intense focus topic in Volcano Geophysics. The interpretations given by scientists on the origin, nature, and location of the structures buried under the island strongly diverge. We present a high-resolution 3D P-wave attenuation tomography model obtained by using the coda normalization method on 20,293 high-quality waveforms produced by active sources. The checkerboard and synthetic anomaly tests guarantee the reproduction of the input anomalies under the island down to a depth of 4 km. The results, once compared with our current knowledge on the geological, geochemical, and geophysical structure of the region, depict Deception as a piecemeal caldera structure coming out of the Bransfield Trough. Highattenuation anomalies contouring the northeastern emerged caldera rim correlate with the locations of sediments. In our interpretation, the main attenuation contrast, which appears under the collapsed southeastern caldera rim, is related to the deeper feeding systems. A unique P-wave high-attenuation spherical-like anomaly in the inner bay extends between depths of 1 and 3 km. The northern contour of the anomaly coincides with the calderic rim both at 1 and 2 km, while smaller anomalies connect it with deeper structures below 3 km, dipping toward the Bransfield Trough. In our interpretation, the large upper anomaly is caused by a high-temperature shallow (1-3 km deep) geothermal system, located beneath the sediment-filled bay in the collapsed blocks and heated by smaller, deeper contributions of molten materials (magma) rising from southeast.

In the Central Mediterranean region, the production of chemically diverse volcanic products (e.g., those from Mt. Etna and the Aeolian Islands archipelago) testifies to the complexity of the tectonic and geodynamic setting. Despite the large number of studies that have focused on this area, the relationships among volcanism, tectonics, magma ascent, and geodynamic processes remain poorly understood. We present a tomographic inversion of P-wave velocity using active and passive sources. Seismic signals were recorded using both temporary on-land and ocean bottom seismometers and data from a permanent local seismic network consisting of 267 seismic stations. Active seismic signals were generated using air gun shots mounted on the Spanish Oceanographic Vessel 'Sarmiento de Gamboa'. Passive seismic sources were obtained from 452 local earthquakes recorded over a 4-month period. In total, 184,797 active P-phase and 11,802 passive P-phase first arrivals were inverted to provide three different velocity models. Our results include the first crustal seismic active tomography for the northern Sicily area, including the Peloritan-southern Calabria region