Open‐vent volcanic systems with active degassing are particularly effective at producing infrasound that exhibits resonant tones controlled by the geometry of the volcano's crater. Changes in the infrasound character can thus provide constraints on a crater's lava level, which may vary dynamically in the lead‐up to an eruption. Here we show that the increasing frequency content and damping characteristics of the resonant infrasound at Volcán Villarrica (Chile) relate to lava lake position in its crater/conduit preceding its 2015 eruption. We model the acoustic response of Villarrica's crater to determine that the lake began to rise on 27 February and reached the flared upper part of Villarrica's crater before oscillating during the two days prior to the 3 March paroxysm and 1.5 km‐high lava fountain. This study demonstrates the utility of remote infrasound monitoring for future eruptions of Villarrica and other analogous open‐vent volcanoes.
We use a network of broadband microphones, including a 4‐element array, to locate the sources of thunder occurring during an electrical storm in central New Mexico on July 24th, 2009. Combined slowness search and distance ranging are used to identify thunder regions in three dimensions (out to 12 km) and for two overlapping frequency bands (1–10 and 4–40 Hz). Distinct thunder pulses are locatable and used to predict time‐of‐arrival to neighboring stations and to identify correlated phases across the network. Spatial correlation is also found between the thunder source regions and regions of very high frequency (VHF) radiation as located by the New Mexico Lightning Mapping Array (LMA). Some of the misfit between the LMA and thunder locations is attributable to differences in excitation mechanisms of the respective radiation, which is related to current impulses in lightning channels (for thunder) and incremental ionization of the atmosphere (for VHF emissions).
[1] We use the continuous and intense ($10 7 W) infrasound produced by Volcan Villarrica (Chile) to invert for the local dynamic wind and temperature structure of the atmosphere. Infrasound arrays deployed in March 2011 at the summit (2826 m) and on the NNW flank ($8 km distant at 825 m) were used to track infrasound propagation times and signal power. We model an atmosphere with vertically varying temperature and horizontal winds and use propagation times (ranging from 23 to 24 s) to invert for horizontal slowness (2.75-2.94 s/km) and average effective sound speeds (328-346 m/s) for NNW propagating infrasound. The corresponding ratio of recorded acoustic power at proximal versus distal arrays was also variable (ranging between 0.15 to 1.5 for the peak 0.33-1 Hz infrasound band). Through application of geometrical ray theory in a uniform gradient atmosphere, these 'amplification factors' are modeled by effective sound speed lapse rates ranging from À15 to +4 m/s per km. NNW-projected wind speeds ranging from À20 m/s to +20 m/s at 2826 m and wind gradients ranging from À11 to +10 m/s per km are inferred from the difference between effective sound speed profiles and adiabatic sound speeds derived from local temperature observations. The sense of these winds is in general agreement with regional meteorological observations recorded with radiosondes. We suggest that infrasound probing can provide useful spatially averaged estimates of atmospheric wind structure that has application for both meteorological observation and volcanological plume dispersal modeling.
Mechanisms that produce seismic and acoustic wavefields near rivers are poorly understood because of a lack of observations relating temporally dependent river conditions to the near‐river seismoacoustic fields. This controlled study at the Harry W. Morrison Dam (HWMD) on the Boise River, Idaho, explores how temporal variation in fluvial systems affects surrounding acoustic and seismic fields. Adjusting the configuration of the HWMD changed the river bathymetry and therefore the form of the standing wave below the dam. The HWMD was adjusted to generate four distinct wave regimes that were parameterized through their dimensionless Froude numbers (Fr) and observations of the ambient seismic and acoustic wavefields at the study site. To generate detectable and coherent signals, a standing wave must exceed a threshold Fr value of 1.7, where a nonbreaking undular jump turns into a breaking weak hydraulic jump. Hydrodynamic processes may partially control the spectral content of the seismic and acoustic energies. Furthermore, spectra related to reproducible wave conditions can be used to calibrate and verify fluvial seismic and acoustic models.
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